From 1752014baf241524bacde2d917073a9b26b02c49 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Leif Hanson Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 15:54:52 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Removed scarfed static blog folder. --- blog/index.html | 932 ----------------- blog/index0027.html | 236 ----- blog/index005b.html | 96 -- blog/index0186.html | 16 - blog/index0260.html | 554 ---------- blog/index02b6.html | 549 ---------- blog/index039c.html | 614 ----------- blog/index03e8.html | 210 ---- blog/index041a.html | 957 ----------------- blog/index0449.html | 591 ----------- blog/index0483.html | 16 - blog/index0558.html | 551 ---------- blog/index0617.html | 300 ------ blog/index0663.html | 70 -- blog/index067b.html | 96 -- blog/index069e.html | 558 ---------- blog/index070c.html | 595 ----------- blog/index072c.html | 584 ----------- blog/index0743.html | 636 ------------ blog/index07c9.html | 131 --- blog/index08fb.html | 604 ----------- blog/index0907.html | 60 -- blog/index0929.html | 550 ---------- blog/index09ca.html | 553 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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index0027.html b/blog/index0027.html deleted file mode 100755 index dad70bb..0000000 --- a/blog/index0027.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,236 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Alaska Hiking - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » June, 2012

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Upper Bushman Lake

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » hiking

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index03e8.html b/blog/index03e8.html deleted file mode 100755 index f03c2d2..0000000 --- a/blog/index03e8.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,210 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Cross Country Skiing - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284#comments - Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:35:46 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=284 - 2 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148#comments - Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:06:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - - On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » January, 2013

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index0617.html b/blog/index0617.html deleted file mode 100755 index c5637e0..0000000 --- a/blog/index0617.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,300 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » travel - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

-

There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

-

You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

-

We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

-

The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

-

We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

-

In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

-

I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

-

My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

-

It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

-

Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

-

But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

-

This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

-

Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

-

After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

-

 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

-

And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

-

Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

-

Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

-

He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

-

I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

-

As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

-

I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

-

In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

-

I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

-

 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

-

But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

-

 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

-

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84#comments - Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:06 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - - I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
-

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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

-

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=84 - 5 - - - Wolves in the Wild - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56#comments - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:25:40 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - - I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=56 - 0 - - - Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30#comments - Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:43:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - - I like to hike. Pure and simple.  -

I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

-

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=30 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/index0663.html b/blog/index0663.html deleted file mode 100755 index bdbf59f..0000000 --- a/blog/index0663.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,70 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Canoeing - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

-

I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

-

“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

-

But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

-

But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

-

For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

-

And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

-

A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

-

They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

-

But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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- diff --git a/blog/index069e.html b/blog/index069e.html deleted file mode 100755 index f808048..0000000 --- a/blog/index069e.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,558 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » DuFresne - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » fishing in the Patagonia

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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About

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne has a deep rooted passion for two things; sunsets and shoreline, no doubt the result of living his entire life in the two states that have more coastline than any other; Alaska and Michigan.

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After graduating from Michigan State University with a journalism degree, Jim was soon headed to Juneau, Alaska. As the outdoors and sports editor of the Juneau Empire, Jim became the first Alaskan sportswriter to win a national award from Associated Press. More significant than the writing award, he discovered his passion for the mountains and wilderness travel while living in Alaska’s capital city.

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In 1981, Jim spent a winter in New Zealand to backpack and write his first book, Tramping in New Zealand for Lonely Planet.  Jim followed up with the first edition of Lonely Planet’s Alaska and later Hiking in Alaska and then returned to Michigan to write Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes. The guide to the wilderness areas of Isle Royale has been in publication in various editions for more than 25 years and today is known as the “backpacker’s bible” to the Lake Superior island.

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Today DuFresne lives in Michigan where he’s never more than an hour’s drive from the shoreline of the Great Lakes. He is the main contributor to www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, a resource web site devoted to trail users and the promotion of trails in his home state. In Michigan DuFresne can be found out on the trail, whether it is hiking, mountain biking, backpacking, snowshoeing or cross-country skiing as the author to more than 20 guidebooks on the state that include Backpacking In Michigan, 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan: A Handbook for Fly Anglers and Michigan: Off the Beaten Path.

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    Mike Ugorowski

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    - in August 1st, 2011 @ 19:04 -
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    Hi Jim, still backpacking and camping. Carol and I spent a nite at Black River State Forest Campground last week. Nice 18 site campground. Earlier this summer we hiked the Shingle Mill Pathway and spent the nite on Grass Lake. I enjoy the email updates with the hikes. All the best, Mike Ugorowski

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    keith

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    - in October 6th, 2012 @ 22:17 -
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    nice site! i love north manitou island. we always base camp 28 minutes (yup, i’ve timed it) south of range station tables where you check in. the 2nd clearing, big oak trees, go west 500 feet and there is a great clearing. there are no chimucks at that location where i base camp – have never seen one, really. easy hike in morning to catch boat back.

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    and a great hike… go south from range station, to junction where you can continue to west side of island, go to ranger station or go to cemetry… you need a topo map, but from this point go into forest and find ridge line (hike like 2min)… hike north along the ridge, must be 250 feet or more up… and the other side drops too! the ridge in some spots is only 15 feet wide (and some drops are very steep) you can hike along the two high points and take any of the large gullies dowm to the main path. the views are great – you can see lake michigan and the whole tree line below you. you can even see where the coyotes bed down… patches of cleared dirt in circle pattern. lots of elevation changes, your legs will burn in a few spots!

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    Kate Riordan

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    - in April 17th, 2013 @ 09:38 -
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    Hi Jim,
    -I wondered if you’d be interested in writing a feature for UK magazine Wild Travel about Alaska? If you might be interested, please email me and I will provide some more details!
    -Best wishes,
    -Kate, deputy editor

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    Tucker

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    - in May 7th, 2013 @ 13:53 -
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    Jim, I love “Backpacking in Michigan.” It’s the most useful local backpacking book I’ve ever seen. I have sons that are four and two, the same ages that you began taking your kids backpacking with you. I’m sure you’ve written more extensively about backpacking with kids on the blog or somewhere else. Where might I look? If not, please consider adding a few posts on the topic. I’m sure quite a few of your readers would be interested. Thank you for all of your work!

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    Jim DuFresne

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    - in May 7th, 2013 @ 14:53 -
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    Thanks for your kind words. Last week somebody else emailed wanting to know where to take his kids backpacking in the Lower Peninsula and I reccommended Negwegon State Park which I was writing about for the next newsletter. You can read it at: http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=973512ba77593a4f5937a7eb4&id=1fed564b38. I will try and follow up with more material on taking kids backpacking and hiking.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » March, 2011

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index0907.html b/blog/index0907.html deleted file mode 100755 index 27bfba9..0000000 --- a/blog/index0907.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,60 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Kelty Backpack - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - The World in a Kelty Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107#comments - Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:00:33 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - - When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » July, 2012

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Roy Kranz

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » February, 2012

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Hiking

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Alaska Hiking

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index0ec5.html b/blog/index0ec5.html deleted file mode 100755 index 47ceadd..0000000 --- a/blog/index0ec5.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index0f27.html b/blog/index0f27.html deleted file mode 100755 index 1b5b072..0000000 --- a/blog/index0f27.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,220 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Alaska Adventure - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203#comments - Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:28:34 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=203 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/index109d.html b/blog/index109d.html deleted file mode 100755 index 40d3096..0000000 --- a/blog/index109d.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,130 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Alaska State Ferries - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » North Manitou Island

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Russian River in Alaska

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index1762.html b/blog/index1762.html deleted file mode 100755 index f7a0ddb..0000000 --- a/blog/index1762.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,119 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Indepence Oaks County Park - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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    Mary Hunt

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    - in March 16th, 2011 @ 21:36 -
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    What a cool and helpful site! I’ll be sure to mention it in the introductory material to my upcoming Hunts’ Guide to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, just as I have recommended your hiking guides to the Porkies and Isle Royale. I’d love to hear from you—there’s something I’d like to ask you.

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ERROR: rss2&p=171 is not a valid feed template.

- diff --git a/blog/index1a71.html b/blog/index1a71.html deleted file mode 100755 index 9aa3ec0..0000000 --- a/blog/index1a71.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index1b9b.html b/blog/index1b9b.html deleted file mode 100755 index 4f4cd67..0000000 --- a/blog/index1b9b.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,541 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Trail Talk - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348#comments - Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:53:44 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348 - -

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - diff --git a/blog/index1b9f.html b/blog/index1b9f.html deleted file mode 100755 index fd212ef..0000000 --- a/blog/index1b9f.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,346 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Alaska - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=242 - 3 - - - Prepping for the Hiking Season - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193#comments - Tue, 10 May 2011 16:59:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Alaska State Ferries

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » August, 2010

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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    Beth

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    Hello, I just happened upon your blog when I googled bike rental Elk Rapids…We will be staying in Elk Rapids the first weekend of August and I was wondering if there was anywhere to rent bikes? I’m looking for more of the road bike type, for longer bike rides? Thank you for your time. Beth

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    Jim DuFresne

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    You can rent bikes (and a lot of other things like kayaks, paddleboards and jogger carts) at Adventure Rentals (231-668-8220) at 107 Bridge St. They’re only 50 yards from a village boat launch so the kayaks can be easily be carried to the Elk River for a fun day of paddling to Elk Lake.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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    Teresa

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    I haven’t had time to read your post lately. So, now I’m catching up. A very funny twist to your story. Your reaction on your face would have been pricless to see! I’m planning some small vacations for next year. I’m not sure if I’ll head back to Isle Royale for my “redo” or if one of these other places you write about will make the list.

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    MichiganTrailMaps.com

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    - in October 14th, 2012 @ 23:26 -
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    We’re coming out with maps to North and South Manitou Island this winter. Either would be a wonderful and easy backpacking trip. South Manitou could also be a place to camp and enjoy a series of day hikes. Stay posted to our werb site at http://www.michigantrailmaps.com for details on the maps and more on these incredible islands that are part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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    Dave

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    - in December 6th, 2012 @ 17:23 -
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    What a great story! You described the mad rush to the campsites perfectly. When we were up there last summer, it was pretty easy to tell where most were headed, depending on how their gear was packed and how much stuff they had dangling from their packs. We camped at Popple and only had to share it with one other solo hiker.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index228b.html b/blog/index228b.html deleted file mode 100755 index 38bbf1e..0000000 --- a/blog/index228b.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,107 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » traveling - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

-

On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

-

Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

-

In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

-

I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

-

When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

-
Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

-

Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

-

Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=342 - 2 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index25cd.html b/blog/index25cd.html deleted file mode 100755 index bd9952d..0000000 --- a/blog/index25cd.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,537 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Michigan - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=361 - 0 - - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=342 - 2 - - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » October, 2012

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Pigeon River Country State Forest

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=342 - 2 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » December, 2012

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

-

“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

-

Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

-

The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

-

There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

-

You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

-

The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

-

We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

-

In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

-

When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

-

“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

-

Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

-

The land of great extremes.

-
Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

-

For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

-

Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

-

But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

-

The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

-

There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

-

You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

-
Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

-

Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

-

We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

-

The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

-

We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

-

In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

-

Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

-

For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

-

Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

-

Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index392a.html b/blog/index392a.html deleted file mode 100755 index ac2ba54..0000000 --- a/blog/index392a.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index3be4.html b/blog/index3be4.html deleted file mode 100755 index 48ef6e9..0000000 --- a/blog/index3be4.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,160 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Kids Outdoors - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

-

I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

-

My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

-

It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

-

Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

-

But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

-

Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

-

This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

-

This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

-

Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

-

After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

-

 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

-

And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

-

Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

-

Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

-

I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

-

“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

-

He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - The World in a Kelty Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107#comments - Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:00:33 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - - When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Hiking

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Chilkoot Trail

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Death Valley National Park

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Salmon Fishing

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Alaska

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
-

Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

-

By Jim DuFresne

-

The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index4c5c.html b/blog/index4c5c.html deleted file mode 100755 index 29a58e6..0000000 --- a/blog/index4c5c.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,544 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Outdoors - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=361 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84#comments - Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:06 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - - I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=84 - 5 - - - Wolves in the Wild - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56#comments - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:25:40 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - - I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Trail Talk

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

It will only shrink.

-

As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

-

Death, taxes and development.

-

I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

-

In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

-

I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » South Manitou Island

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Fly fishing

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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    Jay Spenchian

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    - in November 8th, 2011 @ 23:20 -
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    JIm
    -Wonderful piece on Father Jack’s Buick. As a member of your extended family, I was able to get a close-up and personal look at that vehicle. Your descriptions were vivid and oh-so accurate. Hard to believe you only paid $1000 for it – was easily worth 5x what you paid. Also, cannot believe you forgot to mention that for too many years it only had one wiper working (fortunately for you it was the drivers’ side). That was such a signature feature and not having it repaired clearly was you living vicariously through Fr. Jack. He wouldn’t have wasted time with such nonsense. You also forgot to mention that whenever you parked it in front of our house, the neighbors would always become suspicious as to what type of character might be visiting us. We’ll miss the old Buick. As your favorite father in law said: “May it rust in peace”.

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    Nora Hockenberry

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    - in November 11th, 2011 @ 13:35 -
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    We knew Father John as he was a great friend of my Aunt Eileen. Fr John visited me sometimes twice a week while I was in the hospital 101/2 weeks having my son Scott. You could always depend on Fr. John that if he said he was going to do something, he was there without a doubt. My family became very fond of him throughout the many years he shared holiday meals with us and attended our many family events as if he belonged to our family. Our son Scott worked for St Robert Bellarmine when he turned 14 for two summers. Fr. John would always have a word or two with Scott giving him encouragement or making him laugh. Scott to this day says that job was one of the best he ever worked. Scott still has Fr. John’s remembrance card on his dresser. He is still with all of us. We loved your piece on Fr. John. He was definitely a man of modest means and a true Disciple of Christ.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » February, 2011

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

-

Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

I’m getting older.

-

Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

-

When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

-

I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

-

Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

-

Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

-

I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

-

I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

-

It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

-

A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

-

I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

-

I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

-

Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

-

I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

-

Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index531c.html b/blog/index531c.html deleted file mode 100755 index b85d914..0000000 --- a/blog/index531c.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,116 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Forbush Corner - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148#comments - Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:06:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - - On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=148 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/index53e7.html b/blog/index53e7.html deleted file mode 100755 index 44e9a73..0000000 --- a/blog/index53e7.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,529 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Camping - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=361 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Prepping for the Hiking Season - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193#comments - Tue, 10 May 2011 16:59:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=193 - 0 - - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122#comments - Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - - A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=122 - 4 - - - The World in a Kelty Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107#comments - Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:00:33 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - - When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Sleeping Bear Dunes

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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    Asics Top

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    - in March 9th, 2011 @ 18:36 -
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    Could I just say such a relief to discover somebody who definitely realizes exactly what they may be sharing on the internet. You actually learn how to bring a major issue to light and make it valuable. More people require to learn this and understand it all section of the story. I cant believe you aren’t more popular as you clearly have the gift.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Personal Journey

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index56f7.html b/blog/index56f7.html deleted file mode 100755 index 0f3c694..0000000 --- a/blog/index56f7.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,333 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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- diff --git a/blog/index5d3d.html b/blog/index5d3d.html deleted file mode 100755 index cd16484..0000000 --- a/blog/index5d3d.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index5f46.html b/blog/index5f46.html deleted file mode 100755 index a1ab4c2..0000000 --- a/blog/index5f46.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,560 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Backpacking - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=361 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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- Comments RSS - TrackBack - 4 comments

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    Desiree Stanfield

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    - in January 3rd, 2011 @ 14:09 -
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    Jim: Thank you for the article on the property acquisiton at Independece Oaks County Park. I didn’t realize you live in Clarkston. I think we’re just a “stone’s throw” apart.
    -Desiree Stanfield, Oakland County Parks and Recreation

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    Tweets that mention Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape » Trail Talk -- Topsy.com

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    - in January 4th, 2011 @ 15:32 -
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    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tweet Michigan Now. Tweet Michigan Now said: RT @DestinationOak: Great post! Thanks Jim RT @MiTrailMaps: New blog post: Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape http://ow.ly/3xX3R [...]

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    Jim DuFresne

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    - in January 4th, 2011 @ 21:34 -
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    Thanks for the comment. Not only do I live in the Clarkston area but I am almost a “stone’s throw” from Upper Bushman Lake. After seeing glimpses of it for years from Sashabaw Road, I can’t wait to start exploring the area.
    -Jim DuFresne

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    Jami IAGULLI

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    - in April 14th, 2011 @ 00:46 -
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    Thanks much for this info…i too live in walking distance to this area.
    -I have looked at this area for over 20 years , wondering who owned it . Nice to see it will be preserved .

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=242 - 3 - - - Prepping for the Hiking Season - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193#comments - Tue, 10 May 2011 16:59:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » July, 2011

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » June, 2013

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=242 - 3 - - - Prepping for the Hiking Season - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193#comments - Tue, 10 May 2011 16:59:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Trails

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index663c.html b/blog/index663c.html deleted file mode 100755 index 986da3c..0000000 --- a/blog/index663c.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,70 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Roy Kranz - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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- diff --git a/blog/index67fa.html b/blog/index67fa.html deleted file mode 100755 index 945ed18..0000000 --- a/blog/index67fa.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,116 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Argentina - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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- diff --git a/blog/index696e.html b/blog/index696e.html deleted file mode 100755 index 4487921..0000000 --- a/blog/index696e.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,123 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Traverse City - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Manistee-Huron National Forest

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

-

Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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- diff --git a/blog/index6b68.html b/blog/index6b68.html deleted file mode 100755 index ea20698..0000000 --- a/blog/index6b68.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,110 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Maps - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30#comments - Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:43:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - - I like to hike. Pure and simple.  -

I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index6c09.html b/blog/index6c09.html deleted file mode 100755 index cdbfc25..0000000 --- a/blog/index6c09.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,70 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Pigeon River Country State Forest - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122#comments - Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - - A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Camping

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Michigan

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
-

I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

-

I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

-

I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

-

Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

-

I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

-

Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

-

Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

-

You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

-

You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

-
Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

-

With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

-

To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » South Manitou Island

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index725a.html b/blog/index725a.html deleted file mode 100755 index e0b5848..0000000 --- a/blog/index725a.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,209 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Cycling - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=342 - 2 - - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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    dcoy

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    - in September 10th, 2010 @ 07:24 -
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    Great post! It’s an amazing place!

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    Jessica

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    - in September 13th, 2010 @ 15:27 -
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    It’s true, we’re so lucky to have such a gem as Sleeping Bear Dunes in our own backyard!

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    Nancy

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    - in November 18th, 2010 @ 13:20 -
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    Yes! Have been going to SBD pretty much every year for the last two decades, and couldn’t agree more. In the spring catch the drumming of the grouse and the first wildflowers, and the fall can be colorful and dramatic. So many great places to walk — Tweddle/Treat Farm, Bay View, an unnamed bluff path at Port Oneida that goes past the German cemetery, Otter Lake Loop. : )

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    CoolMan

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    - in November 25th, 2010 @ 03:18 -
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    Greetings, and thanks for this informative article.
    -I was moved to Michigan many years ago (after graduate school) from the Southwest, so I still don’t know Michigan very well (aside from the Southeast, and a little bit of the Holland area), although I have been in MI for nearly 20 years.
    -I like the outdoors, and I’m deeply involved in photography, especially nature photography.

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    I confess that I have not been to the bridge or the U.P., but I hope to find more blogs and articles that would help me organize a tour of the U.P. someday (as long as it is NOT during cold weather. I hate cold weather with passion!).

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    I don’t know if these sand dunes just look spectacular to people who have not been around the desert or if they are some unusual dunes.
    -Personally I have seen the desert and the dunes most of my life, including White Sands, and I’m just wondering if I would see any thing in them that I have not seen a million times.

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    I have been to many states (no less than 35 of them), but Vancouver remains my favorite spot, then California, especially the Bay area(SF area). LA area has a number of great attractions as well, and my favorite around LA is Catalina Island (about 45 minutes boat ride from Long Beach).

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    Some day I hope I’ll make it to the Sleeping Bear dunes (hopefully while the Bear is still sleeping), and decide for myself if I agree with this article (on opinion).
    -I certainly hope it won’t be a waste of time for me.

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    I wish the blog had included information on camping.
    -That would be useful information if people need to spend more than a day at the SB dunes.

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    Glad I found this site.

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    Thank you.

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    Jim

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    - in November 25th, 2010 @ 12:42 -
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    The difference is the dunes is that Sleeping Bear they overlook one of the largest lakes in the country. It’s the combination of sand and surf that make them so spectacular as oppose to dunes in the dessert.
    -Keep an eye on our website, http://www.michigantrailmaps.com. We should have a new campground book out next spring, featuring the best 150 public campgrounds around the state.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index751b.html b/blog/index751b.html deleted file mode 100755 index d47eea6..0000000 --- a/blog/index751b.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,77 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Death Valley National Park - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

-

I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

-

I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

-

In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

-

It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

-

Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

-

The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

-

I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

-

“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

-

In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

-

All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

-

This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

-

“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

-

The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

-

From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

-

He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

-

On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

-

“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

-

South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

-

Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

-
The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

-

Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

-

More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

-

In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

-

Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

-

Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

-

This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

-

For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

-

Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

-
- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
-

Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

-

By Jim DuFresne

-

There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

-

“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

-

In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

-

All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

-

This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

-
Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

-

Let the day begin.

-

“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

-

The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

-

From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

-

He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

-

On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

-

“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

-

South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

-

Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

-
The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

-

Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

-

More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

-

In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

-

Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

-

Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

-

This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

-

For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

-

Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-
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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Deer Ticks

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
-

Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

-

By Jim DuFresne

-

Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

-

What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

-

I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

-

All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

-
Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

-

Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

-

I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

-

In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

-

It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

-

Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

-

The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

-
Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

-

It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

-

“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

-

In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

-

I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-
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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index785a.html b/blog/index785a.html deleted file mode 100755 index 4dcddf7..0000000 --- a/blog/index785a.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,456 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » trails - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Time To Give Back To Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275#comments - Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:08:32 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275 - - Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=275 - 0 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84#comments - Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:06 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - - I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=84 - 5 - - - Wolves in the Wild - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56#comments - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:25:40 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - - I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=56 - 0 - - - Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30#comments - Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:43:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - - I like to hike. Pure and simple.  -

I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=30 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/index7887.html b/blog/index7887.html deleted file mode 100755 index 36ac639..0000000 --- a/blog/index7887.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index7896.html b/blog/index7896.html deleted file mode 100755 index c6972b9..0000000 --- a/blog/index7896.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,546 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » hiking - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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    Ray Dmoch

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    - in March 3rd, 2012 @ 08:44 -
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    Your right, the snow is what some of us thrive for in Michigan. I wonder if you have ever done a article on camping out in the winter time, not in a ten but in a quanzee, This is something I have dreamed about. I am almost 60 and this is on my bucket list.

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    Jim DuFresne

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    - in March 6th, 2012 @ 13:27 -
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    I have done articles in the past about winter camping in a tent. What I have always wanted to do is spend the night in a snow cave or igloo. What is a quanzee?

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Chilkoot Trail

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index7e31.html b/blog/index7e31.html deleted file mode 100755 index cf99795..0000000 --- a/blog/index7e31.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,253 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Uncategorized - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=171 - 2 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84#comments - Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:06 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - - I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2
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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » State forest pathways

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index7fb6.html b/blog/index7fb6.html deleted file mode 100755 index e8a9c9c..0000000 --- a/blog/index7fb6.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,538 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Hiking - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=361 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - Time To Give Back To Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275#comments - Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:08:32 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275 - - Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Wolves

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Backpacking

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index84aa.html b/blog/index84aa.html deleted file mode 100755 index 245de2e..0000000 --- a/blog/index84aa.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,116 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » brown trout - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

-

To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

-

Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

-

Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

-

Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

-

Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

-

Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

-

When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

-

And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

-

The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

-

It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index85fb.html b/blog/index85fb.html deleted file mode 100755 index 93f0ca7..0000000 --- a/blog/index85fb.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,541 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Michigan - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » December, 2010

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Michigan

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index8b1f.html b/blog/index8b1f.html deleted file mode 100755 index 73ff90b..0000000 --- a/blog/index8b1f.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,371 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Personal Adventure - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348#comments - Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:53:44 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348 - -

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Prepping for the Hiking Season - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193#comments - Tue, 10 May 2011 16:59:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=193 - 0 - - - diff --git a/blog/index8d96.html b/blog/index8d96.html deleted file mode 100755 index 8fa1cc8..0000000 --- a/blog/index8d96.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,536 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Jim DuFresne - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

-

I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

-

On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

-

I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

-

On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

-

Powerful stuff.

-

If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

-

Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

-

Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

-

Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

-

It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

-

And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

-

Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

-

At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

-

On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

-

My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

-

As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

-

When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Cycling

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index8f18.html b/blog/index8f18.html deleted file mode 100755 index 0696aa7..0000000 --- a/blog/index8f18.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,530 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Trails - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=361 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284#comments - Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:35:46 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Overseas Adventure

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » March, 2013

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index9217.html b/blog/index9217.html deleted file mode 100755 index d947ab9..0000000 --- a/blog/index9217.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,130 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Alaska Marine Highway - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=242 - 3 - - - Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217#comments - Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:27:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day. -
 
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=217 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/index9251.html b/blog/index9251.html deleted file mode 100755 index 111b5ad..0000000 --- a/blog/index9251.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index9328.html b/blog/index9328.html deleted file mode 100755 index fc943da..0000000 --- a/blog/index9328.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,169 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Overseas Travel - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=342 - 2 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - A Personal Journey to Argentina - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171#comments - Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:57:55 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171 - - Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Michigan

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Winter Adventure

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Hiking

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Kelty Backpack

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

-

You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

-

 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

-

We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

-

It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

-

After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

-

After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

-

When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

-

“What do you think I should do?”

-

As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

-

“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

-

And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

-

That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Personal Adventure

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » travel

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » September, 2010

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » April, 2012

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Northern Michigan

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Guidebooks

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/index9f05.html b/blog/index9f05.html deleted file mode 100755 index edb6d23..0000000 --- a/blog/index9f05.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,108 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Winter Adventure - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148#comments - Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:06:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - - On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » July, 2010

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
-

I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

-

I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

-

I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

-

Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

-

I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

-

Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

-

Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

-

You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

-

You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

-
Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

-

With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

-

To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Argentina

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » November, 2010

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Outdoors

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexa1f5.html b/blog/indexa1f5.html deleted file mode 100755 index 76dc228..0000000 --- a/blog/indexa1f5.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,528 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Personal Journey - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284#comments - Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:35:46 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=284 - 2 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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    Ginnis

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    - in February 7th, 2011 @ 13:27 -
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    What a wonderful blog Jim. Forbush Corner is an awesome place to ski, and, yes, slogging through the woods is a blast, but so is skiing up and down perfectly groomed classic tracks, and skating. Forbush Corner is definitely one of the most charming spots in Michigan.

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    (facebook: ginnis equality ginnis)

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Trail Talk

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

-

Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

-

Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

-

It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Jim DuFresne

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexa738.html b/blog/indexa738.html deleted file mode 100755 index 7d88a42..0000000 --- a/blog/indexa738.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,70 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Laskeshore Trail - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexa74b.html b/blog/indexa74b.html deleted file mode 100755 index 2afc8ce..0000000 --- a/blog/indexa74b.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,219 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » State forest pathways - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=261 - 2 - - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122#comments - Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - - A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » May, 2011

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Prepping for the Hiking Season

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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- Comments RSS - TrackBack - 2 comments

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    mike c

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    - in April 1st, 2011 @ 17:25 -
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    life is good

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    wish I could go
    -mc

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    Jim D

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    - in April 2nd, 2011 @ 15:56 -
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    You would have liked Argentina. It would have been a throw back to our travels across New Zealand.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Indepence Oaks County Park

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Cross Country Skiing

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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    Lindsay

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    - in July 12th, 2011 @ 23:04 -
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    Excellent story, Jim. I really enjoyed it.

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    Tyler

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    - in July 13th, 2011 @ 06:13 -
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    Fantastic story. I’m moving to AK next month and while I’ll miss prime hiking season, stories like this make excited just to move there. Thanks

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    Ron

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    - in October 28th, 2012 @ 20:22 -
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    Great account Jim of your hike. I plan on driving to Alaska next year and use the Alaska.Marine Highway (Ferry) on my return. Skagway and this hike is on my radar. I’m retired and at 71 years old I have all the time in the world to see that part of the country. May I suggest a hike I did in Glacier National Park for you and your son.Take the Gunsight Pass Trail to Sperry Chalet. Trails in this park that go to up to either Chalet (Glacier or Sperry) are on the top of my list of favorte trails. Keep enjoying the time with your son and our great National Park Systems.

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    Ron

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexa900.html b/blog/indexa900.html deleted file mode 100755 index 0e156a4..0000000 --- a/blog/indexa900.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexabe8.html b/blog/indexabe8.html deleted file mode 100755 index 2c059ac..0000000 --- a/blog/indexabe8.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,339 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Overseas Adventure - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203#comments - Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:28:34 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=203 - 1 - - - Prepping for the Hiking Season - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193#comments - Tue, 10 May 2011 16:59:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=193 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, is headed for Alaska this summer and will be spending more than a month in Southeast Alaska exploring the region’s wonderful trail system. He promises to blog about his walks beginning in mid-June. We’re going to hold him to it.

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I couldn’t help but notice the person next to me at my health club. He was shouldering a backpack and I’m pretty sure it had a few bricks in it. He had his treadmill elevated to level 10 as if he were scaling a 10,000-foot peak in Colorado and swinging his arms. All he was missing was a pair of trekking poles.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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There was only one thing I could possibly ask him: “Where are you headed?”

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“Yosemite.”

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“Cool.”

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This summer there will be hikers and backpackers hitting trails all across the country, but right now they’re prepping. That includes me.

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The highlight of my hiking season will be the last week of June when I meet my son in Juneau, Alaska and then jump on an Alaska state ferry for Skagway to tackle the Chilkoot Trail.

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The Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and often the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to four days following the historic route every summer. It was the route used by the Klondike gold miners in the 1898 gold rush, and walking the well-developed trail is not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. It’s a 34-mile walk that includes the Chilkoot Pass, a steep climb up to 3525 feet, where most hikers scramble on all fours over the loose rocks and boulders.

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To fully enjoy it, I need to be ready. I need to do some serious prepping, especially at my age. I’m turning 56 years old this summer but there is no reason I can’t undertake a challenging walk like the Chilkoot.

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Almost six million Americans age 55 plus go hiking or backpacking every year, making it one of the most popular sporting activities among older athletes. They’re out there to experience a slice of nature, to enjoy great scenery and for possibly the biggest benefit of all: aerobic exercise.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, hiking, even on easy trails, burns more calories than walking or aerobic dancing, in my case 620 calories an hour. Throw on a backpack and I’m burning almost as many as cross-country skiing.

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The Chilkoot Trail

A backpacker on the Chilkoot Trail near, Skagway, Alaska.

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The key to older backpackers like me is to prep and once on the trail to follow a set of rules that were passed down to me years ago on Isle Royale National Park by a backpacker named Jim Preish. The North Carolina hiker didn’t carry the heaviest pack on the island nor did he have the fastest pace on the trail. Far from it. But Preish captured my admiration because at the age of 65 he was still out there backpacking and I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be when he turns 70. He taught me to:          

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Ligthen the load. This is critical for anybody, young or old. Always perform a shakedown before every trip and evaluate every piece of gear in your pack. Do you really need a trailside espresso maker or that bulky solar shower?

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Use the Right Gear. Even with required equipment you can lighten your load. Down sleeping bags are up to half the weight of synthetic bags. If you’re sleeping alone use a solo tent instead of a two-man dome.  Measure your food carefully in advance and repackage it. Hauling uneaten food for four or five days is a cardinal sin.

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Invest in gear that will make you more comfortable on the trail. For many of us it’s the extra thick, self-inflatable Thermarest pad for a better sleep at night. For Preish it was a small, folding stool so he didn’t have to sit on the ground after a long day on the trail.

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Reduce your daily mileage. Plan your trip so you’re only covering 5 to 7 miles a day instead of the 10 or 12 miles you did in your youth.

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Slow down the pace and stop often. The breaks don’t have to be long, just more frequent to give your legs a chance to recover throughout the day.

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When faced with a particularly hard day, take ibuprofen in the morning before you head out. Preish believed ibuprofen in the morning and a cup of good whiskey in the evening were the most effective ways in preventing sore muscles or relieving them .

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And finally my addition to Preish’s list of golden rules; if at all possible hike with somebody younger than you. There is nothing like strong shoulders and young legs to carry a good portion of the group gear across a mountain pass.

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After all those years of hauling his stuff when he was much younger, I told my now 25-year-old son this was payback time and he had to carry the tent, stove, water filter and a majority of the food over the Chilkoot Pass. Naturally he protested, who wouldn’t?  But eventually he agreed when I offered to pay for the ferry and train tickets needed to hike the trail and a night of lodging in Skagway after we’re done.

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If you ask me, that’s a small price to pay for an adventure as grand as this one.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=193 - 0 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - A Personal Journey to Argentina - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171#comments - Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:57:55 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171 - - Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=171 - 2 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=165 - 1 - - - The World in a Kelty Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107#comments - Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:00:33 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - - When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexaed9.html b/blog/indexaed9.html deleted file mode 100755 index 047b942..0000000 --- a/blog/indexaed9.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,115 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Manistee-Huron National Forest - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122#comments - Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - - A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=122 - 4 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexaf1b.html b/blog/indexaf1b.html deleted file mode 100755 index 9074987..0000000 --- a/blog/indexaf1b.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,116 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Michigan state parks - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122#comments - Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - - A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

-

The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

Who was going to remove them?

-

In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

-

That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

-

Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

-

The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

-

“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

-

The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

-

Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

-

Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

-

Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

-
-

A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

-
-

It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

-

Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

-

It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

-

The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

-

If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

-

I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

-

And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

-

Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

-

Share/Bookmark

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Alaska

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexb17d.html b/blog/indexb17d.html deleted file mode 100755 index b70bed6..0000000 --- a/blog/indexb17d.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,186 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Chilkoot Trail - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=242 - 3 - - - Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217#comments - Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:27:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day. -
 
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=217 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexb252.html b/blog/indexb252.html deleted file mode 100755 index d6d9777..0000000 --- a/blog/indexb252.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,413 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Northern Michigan - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

-

I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

-

I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

-

“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148#comments - Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:06:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - - On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=148 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexb2b7.html b/blog/indexb2b7.html deleted file mode 100755 index 1ef14c3..0000000 --- a/blog/indexb2b7.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,315 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Sleeping Bear Dunes - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

-

It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84#comments - Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:06 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - - I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=84 - 5 - - - Wolves in the Wild - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56#comments - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:25:40 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - - I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexb3d5.html b/blog/indexb3d5.html deleted file mode 100755 index c3fa098..0000000 --- a/blog/indexb3d5.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,178 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Isle Royale National Park - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316#comments - Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:57 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=316 - - I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=316 - 0 - - - Wolves in the Wild - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56#comments - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:25:40 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - - I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexb44c.html b/blog/indexb44c.html deleted file mode 100755 index 147e770..0000000 --- a/blog/indexb44c.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,204 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Winter Adventure - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284#comments - Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:35:46 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=284 - 2 - - - Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148#comments - Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:06:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - - On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=148 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexb4ae.html b/blog/indexb4ae.html deleted file mode 100755 index 8b397fa..0000000 --- a/blog/indexb4ae.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,269 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » South Manitou Island - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - The World in a Kelty Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107#comments - Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:00:33 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=107 - - When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexb829.html b/blog/indexb829.html deleted file mode 100755 index 272c587..0000000 --- a/blog/indexb829.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,112 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » picnics - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84#comments - Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:06 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=84 - - I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Michigan

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » November, 2011

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Michigan state parks

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexbaba.html b/blog/indexbaba.html deleted file mode 100755 index 65ef29f..0000000 --- a/blog/indexbaba.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,77 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Salmon Fishing - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » brown trout

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Michigan

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Maps

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

-

As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

-

Death, taxes and development.

-

I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

-

In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

-

 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

-

 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexbeb2.html b/blog/indexbeb2.html deleted file mode 100755 index dcc8e06..0000000 --- a/blog/indexbeb2.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexbf27.html b/blog/indexbf27.html deleted file mode 100755 index 36fb047..0000000 --- a/blog/indexbf27.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,286 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=370 - 0 - - - The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361#comments - Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:11:52 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=361 - - Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=361 - 0 - - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122#comments - Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - - A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Forbush Corner

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Outdoors

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Alaska Adventure

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Kids Outdoors

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

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 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Isle Royale National Park

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexc07d.html b/blog/indexc07d.html deleted file mode 100755 index 0900dfd..0000000 --- a/blog/indexc07d.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,111 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Wolves - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - Wolves in the Wild - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56#comments - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:25:40 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - - I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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    Eric

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    I have alot of friends and family in the lower 48 who want to come see SE. I push the ferry system over a cruise for all the reasons you mention in your write-up. Great story!!

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Laskeshore Trail

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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    Beth

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    - in April 6th, 2013 @ 03:40 -
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    Hello, I just happened upon your blog when I googled bike rental Elk Rapids…We will be staying in Elk Rapids the first weekend of August and I was wondering if there was anywhere to rent bikes? I’m looking for more of the road bike type, for longer bike rides? Thank you for your time. Beth

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    Jim DuFresne

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    You can rent bikes (and a lot of other things like kayaks, paddleboards and jogger carts) at Adventure Rentals (231-668-8220) at 107 Bridge St. They’re only 50 yards from a village boat launch so the kayaks can be easily be carried to the Elk River for a fun day of paddling to Elk Lake.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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    Greg Davidson

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    Ha i’ve seen those boots in New Zealand,we miss you down this way Jim!! Good read as always :)

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    Greg.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Fly fishing

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A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes

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- Brown bears and big fish are the highlights to a fly fishing adventure on Alaska's famed Russian River.
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Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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About

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne has a deep rooted passion for two things; sunsets and shoreline, no doubt the result of living his entire life in the two states that have more coastline than any other; Alaska and Michigan.

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After graduating from Michigan State University with a journalism degree, Jim was soon headed to Juneau, Alaska. As the outdoors and sports editor of the Juneau Empire, Jim became the first Alaskan sportswriter to win a national award from Associated Press. More significant than the writing award, he discovered his passion for the mountains and wilderness travel while living in Alaska’s capital city.

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In 1981, Jim spent a winter in New Zealand to backpack and write his first book, Tramping in New Zealand for Lonely Planet.  Jim followed up with the first edition of Lonely Planet’s Alaska and later Hiking in Alaska and then returned to Michigan to write Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes. The guide to the wilderness areas of Isle Royale has been in publication in various editions for more than 25 years and today is known as the “backpacker’s bible” to the Lake Superior island.

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Today DuFresne lives in Michigan where he’s never more than an hour’s drive from the shoreline of the Great Lakes. He is the main contributor to www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, a resource web site devoted to trail users and the promotion of trails in his home state. In Michigan DuFresne can be found out on the trail, whether it is hiking, mountain biking, backpacking, snowshoeing or cross-country skiing as the author to more than 20 guidebooks on the state that include Backpacking In Michigan, 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan: A Handbook for Fly Anglers and Michigan: Off the Beaten Path.

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- Comments RSS - TrackBack - 5 comments

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    Mike Ugorowski

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    - in August 1st, 2011 @ 19:04 -
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    Hi Jim, still backpacking and camping. Carol and I spent a nite at Black River State Forest Campground last week. Nice 18 site campground. Earlier this summer we hiked the Shingle Mill Pathway and spent the nite on Grass Lake. I enjoy the email updates with the hikes. All the best, Mike Ugorowski

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    keith

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    - in October 6th, 2012 @ 22:17 -
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    nice site! i love north manitou island. we always base camp 28 minutes (yup, i’ve timed it) south of range station tables where you check in. the 2nd clearing, big oak trees, go west 500 feet and there is a great clearing. there are no chimucks at that location where i base camp – have never seen one, really. easy hike in morning to catch boat back.

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    and a great hike… go south from range station, to junction where you can continue to west side of island, go to ranger station or go to cemetry… you need a topo map, but from this point go into forest and find ridge line (hike like 2min)… hike north along the ridge, must be 250 feet or more up… and the other side drops too! the ridge in some spots is only 15 feet wide (and some drops are very steep) you can hike along the two high points and take any of the large gullies dowm to the main path. the views are great – you can see lake michigan and the whole tree line below you. you can even see where the coyotes bed down… patches of cleared dirt in circle pattern. lots of elevation changes, your legs will burn in a few spots!

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    Kate Riordan

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    - in April 17th, 2013 @ 09:38 -
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    Hi Jim,
    -I wondered if you’d be interested in writing a feature for UK magazine Wild Travel about Alaska? If you might be interested, please email me and I will provide some more details!
    -Best wishes,
    -Kate, deputy editor

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    Tucker

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    - in May 7th, 2013 @ 13:53 -
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    Jim, I love “Backpacking in Michigan.” It’s the most useful local backpacking book I’ve ever seen. I have sons that are four and two, the same ages that you began taking your kids backpacking with you. I’m sure you’ve written more extensively about backpacking with kids on the blog or somewhere else. Where might I look? If not, please consider adding a few posts on the topic. I’m sure quite a few of your readers would be interested. Thank you for all of your work!

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    Jim DuFresne

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    - in May 7th, 2013 @ 14:53 -
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    Thanks for your kind words. Last week somebody else emailed wanting to know where to take his kids backpacking in the Lower Peninsula and I reccommended Negwegon State Park which I was writing about for the next newsletter. You can read it at: http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=973512ba77593a4f5937a7eb4&id=1fed564b38. I will try and follow up with more material on taking kids backpacking and hiking.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexc5f6.html b/blog/indexc5f6.html deleted file mode 100755 index 115ecc5..0000000 --- a/blog/indexc5f6.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,70 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Au Sable River Canoe Marathon - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexc5fe.html b/blog/indexc5fe.html deleted file mode 100755 index 99c248c..0000000 --- a/blog/indexc5fe.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,70 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » June, 2011

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » September, 2012

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

-

What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

-

I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

-

All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

-

I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

-

In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

-

It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

-

Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

-

The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

-

“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

-

I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Overseas Travel

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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A Personal Journey to Argentina

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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- diff --git a/blog/indexca6e.html b/blog/indexca6e.html deleted file mode 100755 index 91bba69..0000000 --- a/blog/indexca6e.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,522 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Travel - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=342 - 2 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284#comments - Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:35:46 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=284 - 2 - - - Time To Give Back To Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275#comments - Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:08:32 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=275 - - Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=275 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Pondering Life & Death on the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=261 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=261#comments - Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:26:20 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=261 - - On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=261 - 2 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=242 - 3 - - - Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217#comments - Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:27:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day. -
 
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Isle Royale National Park

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexcea6.html b/blog/indexcea6.html deleted file mode 100755 index 34ee949..0000000 --- a/blog/indexcea6.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,315 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Fly fishing - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Alaska Marine Highway

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Oakland County Parks

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Au Sable River Canoe Marathon

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » September, 2011

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Winter Adventure

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » hiking

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island

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- Keep an eye out for deer ticks, even check your belly button, but don't let the fear of Lyme disease stop you from heading outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail

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- The best hiking in Michigan is happening right now. Hit the trail but leave the cell phone and IPad at home.
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Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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            *                               *                                      *

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape

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The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Travel

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A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack

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- For 25 years and around the world Jim DuFresne used his Dana Design backpack to carry what he needed to survive in the wilderness.
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North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

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A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley

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- MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale and Jim DuFresne hikes Death Valley National Park
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South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail

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You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day.
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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- diff --git a/blog/indexd784.html b/blog/indexd784.html deleted file mode 100755 index 6bd573d..0000000 --- a/blog/indexd784.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,536 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - A Holiday Sale And A Journey To Death Valley - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405#comments - Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:42 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=405 - - South Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

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Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

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Journey To A Deadly Valley

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

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Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

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When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

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“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

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Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

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The land of great extremes.

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Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

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For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

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Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

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But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

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The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

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There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

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You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

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Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

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Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

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We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

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The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

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We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

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In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

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Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

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For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=405 - 0 - - - Thoughts on a Wilderness Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395#comments - Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=395 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 - 0 - - - Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381#comments - Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:32:53 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=381 - - Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=381 - 0 - - - Chipmunks & Ticks on North Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370#comments - Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:05:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=370 - - Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s third Trail Talk blog in a series from the Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, where he was working recently on a mapping project for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Chipmunks I have no fear of. These small, striped rodents are so numerous on South and Manitou Islands that they have become an overly aggressive pest to anybody setting up camp. Turn your back on them and they have been known to chew through duffel bags and packs when they get a whiff of anything that might be edible.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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We were told to hang our food as if we were in bear country.

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What had me truly scared heading over to North Manitou was much smaller; deer ticks. Officially known as the Black-Legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), this is the species that spreads Lyme disease. I have a friend who has suffered from Lyme disease for years and it is something I absolutely want to avoid.

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I was told by a maintenance worker on South Manitou to be careful, North Manitou was having a bad tick summer. Researchers were finding large numbers of deer ticks on birds with a high percentage of them carrying the disease. On the National Park Service web site for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was a red flagged “Park Alert” that stated “ticks are common throughout the Lakeshore with a high population located on North Manitou Island.”

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All this had me in a panic mode when I stepped off the ferry for a week of backpacking on the 15,000-acre island. This tiny insect had managed to instill more fear in me than the 900-pound brown bears I have encountered in the Alaska wilderness.

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Deer Tick

An adult deer tick is the size of an apple seed.

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Despite being sunny every day and in the low 80s I wore a long-sleeve shirt and pants that were tucked into wool socks. As instructed I chose light colors for my clothing, stayed in the center of the trail while hiking and even packed along a small collapsible chair so I could avoid sitting on the ground or logs.

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I began each morning spraying my pants and shirt with insect repellent that contained concentrations of DEET ranging from 25% to almost 100%. That was part I hated the most, dousing myself with chemicals to ward off a tiny insect.

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In the evening I’d climb into my solo tent and attempted to search my body for a tick climbing up my leg or trying to burrow into my skin. I am anything but petite and in the small tent I struggled with my head lamp to search my “underarms, belly button, and back of knees” as the NPS web site advised.

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It wasn’t easy and more times than not I just gave up and crawled into my sleeping bag.

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Worse of all I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are often found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a passing host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks as they do not jump or fly but often simply drop from their perch onto a host.

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The nymph form of the deer tick is most often responsible for transmitting Lyme disease and at this stage the insect is the size of a poppy seed. Good luck finding that at night while sitting in a cramped tent with dying batteries in your flashlight.

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Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

Backpackers on North Manitou Island.

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It was a researcher that I met on the trail one day that finally eased some my fears. True, the nymph is often responsible for the disease but exposure to them usually occurs in the summer. I was there in early September. The adult form also transmits the disease but they don’t appear until October and are the size of an apple seed.

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“You can clearly see them on your skin,” he said.

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In the end, I realized I needed to be vigilant about deer ticks but not so overwhelmed by the fear of Lyme disease that I stop hiking and backpacking.

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I needed to be outdoors, as often I can, and I realized if it meant hanging my food up at night and then checking my belly button … that’s a small price to pay to spend a night on a wilderness island.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise! - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342#comments - Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:13:11 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=342 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

-

 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

-

I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

-

We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

-

In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

-

It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

-

Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

-

I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

-

The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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    Jess

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    - in September 21st, 2011 @ 23:11 -
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    I worked for Greg at Fort Mackinac one summer when I was in college. My favorite memory of Greg was him trading in a tie for a wool, soldier’s uniform from the Civil in 85 degree weather. Then he would go out in front of the fort to enthusiastically greet the masses of tourists that came to the island each day. He was truly a good person who had a passion for northern Michigan.

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    Steve

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    - in September 21st, 2011 @ 23:18 -
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    You wrote a wonderful article about your friend Greg! I am glad you have many great memories with him. I am sorry for your loss, but happy that Greg is at peace. Thanks for sharing the memories.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexd942.html b/blog/indexd942.html deleted file mode 100755 index 2ab999c..0000000 --- a/blog/indexd942.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,123 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » State Forest Pathways - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Driving Father Jack’s Buick - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270#comments - Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:07:14 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=270 - - I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=270 - 2 - - - Pondering Life & Death on the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=261 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=261#comments - Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:26:20 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=261 - - On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

-

Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

-

 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

-

I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

-

We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

-

In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

-

It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

-

Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

-

I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

-

The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

-

From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

-

The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=261 - 2 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexdb84.html b/blog/indexdb84.html deleted file mode 100755 index 9228f37..0000000 --- a/blog/indexdb84.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,655 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests » Trail Talk - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2
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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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    Tweets that mention A Tree in the Middle of the Trail » Trail Talk -- Topsy.com

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    - in November 11th, 2010 @ 16:56 -
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    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Camping 411 Guy, Jim DuFresne. Jim DuFresne said: New blog post: A Tree in the Middle of the Trail http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 [...]

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    Rob

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    - in November 23rd, 2010 @ 13:41 -
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    Good posting. Sadly we need to rely on vounteers more and more. Its not that volunteers aren’t willing (I know several people who do a ton of work on the North Country Trail), but because of our jobs many of us don’t always have the time to spend on doing volunteer trailwork. My job is technically 40 hours a week, but realistically I am working nearly 60 hours a week, especially during the prime hiking season of spring, summer and fall. And I kow I am not alone.

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    I hike alone a lot and do my share of trail clearing when I can, but its hard for one person, without a saw, to clear a large tree off of a trail.

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    I don’t have a solution, I just know that in tough times, our hobby/avocation is one that is getting the crunch.

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    Jerry Vis

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    - in December 26th, 2010 @ 15:52 -
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    Hi Jim,

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    Like your website, I think I will be visiting it often.

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    However, I disagree with your proposal for a new sticker to fund the State Forests and trails here in Michigan. Just last spring, I was having a conversation with one of the fine COs we have in Michigan about the need for just one sticker for access to all the state’s recreational oppertunities. I was in the Bass River Recreation area, and didn’t know if the State Park sticker I had was good for recreation areas, he told me it was, which was a good thing.

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    It would be extremely hard to enforce any type of pass for the state forests, since they are so large and have so many access roads in and out. I think a much better way to increase funding for the DNR would be to require the new Recreational Passport for any one camping in a State Forest, whether they are in a developed campground, or camping for free out in the boonies. Then reduce the cost per night in the developed campgrounds to $10 per night so that a 20 dollar bill would cover a typical weekend for most people. It would reduce confusion, and add more money to the DNR coffers which is so badly needed. I think by lowering the price per night, more people would use the campgrounds, and requiring the Recreational Passport is much better than a new seperate sticker.

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    Another thing that should be done is to look at some of the work rules that have been set into law recently. I don’t know if you are aware of it, but the unit manager for the Pigeon RIver Country must spend 20% of his working time on vehicle use issues, document that he is spending that much time on them, and turn it in to his superiors. That’s one full day per week. Scott has said that this is hampering his efforts in dealing with other issues. That was not an internal rule with in the DNR, but imposed by the legislature in a funding bill, and I don’t know if it applies to all unit mannagers, or just the PRC. We need to free up the unit managers so they can deal with issues at hand, not have to do make work projects to meet a requirement.

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    Jerry Vis

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    Jim DuFresne

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    - in December 26th, 2010 @ 17:22 -
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    Jerry, excellent points. I wouldn’t have a problem with extending the passport requirement to state forest campgrounds. My main concern is generating a more stable flow of revenue for state forest facilities, whether they are campgrounds, trails or boat landings. I also think its important for people to accept the reality that if they use public facilities and public land they have to pay for it. Or lose it. The old notion that we shouldn’t have user fees because “I already pay taxes” no longer holds water. Parks and public land are always the first to be axed from general funds when governments are experiencing budget shortages.
    -As long as I’m on the topic, I also believe senior citizen discounts should be carefully reviewed. Seniors are much more active than they were 25 or 30 years ago when many of the discounts were put in place. If they are camping or hiking a trail or visiting a state park I believe they should shoulder a greater share of the fees paid if not the same as every other age group. If we offer deep discounts on entry fees and camping fees it should be based on income (I’m not sure how you would even do a hardship discount) not age. I say all this knowing I’m not that farte away from a senior discount myself.

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    Jim DuFresne

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-

The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

-
Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

-

Who was going to remove them?

-

In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

-

That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

-

Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

-

The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

-

“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

-

The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » May, 2012

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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Going Extreme on Classic Michigan Trails

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- Are these guys crazy! Covering the 40-mile Lakeshore Trail in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Greenstone Ridge Trail at Isle Royale in less than a day! Good luck and I'll see you at the end.
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I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

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The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

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Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

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 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

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Roy

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My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

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I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

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A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

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If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

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A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

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As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

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Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

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Eric

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I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

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His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

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His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

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I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

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To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

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You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

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 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

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You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » August, 2012

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Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island

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- Sometimes in order to slowdown and kickback on a remote island, you first have to race to your campsite.
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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334#comments - Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:54:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=334 - - Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=334 - 0 - - - Lose the Smart Phone & Hit the Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311#comments - Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:37:24 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=311 - - Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry North (231-941-1100). The $5 admission includes the new Jordan River Pathway map from MichiganTrailMaps.com. If you’re headed to Grand Traverse area for the weekend and need accommodations check with the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-872-8377).

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By Jim DuFresne

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A friend and I were hiking the Manistee River Trail, that classic trek 30 minutes south of Traverse City near Mesick, when we paused to watch a drift boat floating the Manistee River below us.

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 There were three in the boat; a guide manning the oars and a client at each end casting large streamers towards the bank. They nodded, we asked them how they were doing and in the middle of the discussion about fly fishing and giant brown trout, the angler in the front stopped casting and sat down to take a call on his cell phone.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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No, I’m sure it was a smart phone. Because this was a person, a CEO probably, who took a day off to arrange a guide and go fishing but couldn’t take a day off. In the middle of the Manistee National Forest, in a place so remote you could only reach it in a boat or on foot, he found it necessary to still conduct business. From a bluff above I called him out on it.

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“Is that a cell phone?” I said. “You’re taking a phone call out here!”

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 He looked at me, kind of sheepishly, and said “Stuff happens.”

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Many consider the Michigan hiking season to be June through August and maybe in sheer numbers of people hiking then, it is. But to me the peak of the season is right now, this week.

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How could you ask for better trail conditions? The weather is clear but cool. I don’t need hot weather and a brutal sun while I’m in the woods. There’s no bugs yet, at least not any that want to suck your blood or buzz annoyingly behind your head.

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There’s also very few people out on the trail. The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom in the corner of the state we were in and if I was more knowledgeable I would have known if the morel mushrooms were starting to pop up.

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A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

A hiker on the Manistee River Trail.

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If you’re backpacking, the nights are cool enough to justify building a fire but not so cold where you spend an evening shivering in your sleeping bag. If you’re not tenting it, then there are some great deals in Traverse City, resorts that charge close to $200 a night in July were trying to entice you last week with that same room for less than $60.

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That’s a deluxe room with a Jacuzzi tub, something that might actually be useful after your first 13-mile hike of the year.

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But the best part of April hiking is that the leaves had yet to unfurl. They’re coming but until then you can see for miles from a high point whereas often in the summer there would be no view at all.

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That was particularly true where we were on the second day; the portion of the North Country Trail that is combined with the Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The NCT is rugged and often we found ourselves skirting the edge of a forested ridge to a view of valleys, more ridges and acres of the Manistee National Forest to the east.

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In my mind this is the best time to be out on the trail. But if you make the effort to escape into the woods, then escape.

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No Facebook, or Twitter checks, or emails or ring tones that come from the movie “Top Gun.” If you pack along a phone, then turn it on only for an emergency or to arrange for transportation at the trailhead.

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When you enter the forest alone, free of any communication with the rest of the world, it becomes a spiritual cleansing from the high-tech overload most of us live with.

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Enter the woods and listen to nothing but the wild around you. There is no call worth disrupting the tranquility you find on a trail, there is nothing on the Internet worth reading while you hiking along a high ridge.

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 Not even this blog.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=311 - 0 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - A Personal Journey to Argentina - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171#comments - Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:57:55 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=171 - - Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

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I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

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I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

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At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

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 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

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Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

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“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

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“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

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So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

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It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

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I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

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Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

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In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

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Here I was on my own.

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After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

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So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

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“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

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A River in Argentina

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

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Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

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But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

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“Ah, ir de pesca.”

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“Going to catch peces.”

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“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

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I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

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At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

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Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

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When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=171 - 2 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=165 - 1 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexe0f6.html b/blog/indexe0f6.html deleted file mode 100755 index 8202edd..0000000 --- a/blog/indexe0f6.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Page has moved - - - -Click here... - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexe30c.html b/blog/indexe30c.html deleted file mode 100755 index 1e285fb..0000000 --- a/blog/indexe30c.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,156 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Cross Country Skiing - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Alone in the Winter Woods - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288#comments - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:38:50 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=288 - - I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=288 - 0 - - - In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284#comments - Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:35:46 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=284 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=284 - 2 - - - Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148#comments - Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:06:25 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=148 - - On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

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Jim DuFresne

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Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

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You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

-

 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

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We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

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It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

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After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

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Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

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After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

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When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

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“What do you think I should do?”

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As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

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“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

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And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

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That’s the way I raised her.

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A Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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When John and his wife visited our family cottage in Elk Rapids, I decided it was time to show him his backyard. The day was perfect for a Sleeping Bear tour; clear and crisp with wisps of clouds sailing across a deep blue sky. A light breeze painted the Great Lake with white caps and sent its surf breaking across wide beaches with a bit of thunder. The mid-60s temperature was ideal for hiking.

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A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

A ghost forest at Sleeping Bear Point.

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In three steps or less, John went from a pleasant forest at the west end of the Empire Bluff Trail to a panorama that clearly caught him off guard. Standing on the edge of a perched dune, he looked down at the waves 400 feet below him, then to the west at a freighter sailing past the Manitou Islands and north at a shoreline of towering dunes. Finally he stared straight ahead at the endless blue horizon where Lake Michigan merged seamlessly into the sky. This is Michigan?

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This is quintessential Michigan.

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If you know somebody who has never been to this great national park, shame on them. If you’ve never offered to take them there, shame on you.
-It’s your duty as a Michigander to spend a day showing them not only one of the most stunning places in our state or even the Midwest … but one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the perfect one-day itinerary for Sleeping Bear Dunes:

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First Stop: Most likely you’ll have to pass through Traverse City on the way to the national lakeshore so pick up supplies for a gourmet picnic lunch. Clustered around the west end of Front Street are a handful of markets where delicious sandwiches, baked goods and even smoked whitefish pate can be found. They include Burritt’s Fresh Markets (509 W. Front; 231-946-3300), Mary’s Kitchen Port (539 W. Front St.; 231-941-0525), Folgarelli Import Market (424 W. Front St.; 231-941-7651) and the Grand Traverse Pie Co. (525 W. Front St.; 231-922-7437).

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Second Stop: At the corner of M-22 and M-72 in Empire is the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134; www.nps.gov/slbe) that doubles as the park’s headquarters. Here you can purchase a vehicle pass, get driving directions check out displays and exhibits and fill the water bottles.

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Third Stop: A five-minute drive from the visitor’s center is the trailhead for Empire Bluff Trail, the perfect warm-up to the day. The round-trip hike is only 1.5 miles and ends in a spectacular view that serves as an appetizer to what follows the rest of the day. For a trail map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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Fourth Stop: Head north on M-22 and M-109 to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The highlight of this 7.4-mile, self-guided auto tour are four overlooks of the Glen Lakes, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the towering perched dunes along Lake Michigan and North Bar Lake. At the Dune Overlook you can hike the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and then enjoy that gourmet lunch at nearby Picnic Mountain.
-Fifth Stop: Even if you don’t climb it, the Dune Climb is a sight to be hold. Park officials estimate that more than 300,000 people climb it annually…or try to. This is no easy climb. It’s 130 feet to the top of the first hill at the Dune Climb and another 130 feet to the top of the second hill, or a total ascent of 260 feet. The view of Glen Lake to the east is stunning at the top while the run back down makes everybody, no matter what their age, feel like a kid again.

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The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The view at an overlook from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

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Sixth Stop: Continue north along M-109 and then swing west on M-209 where the road ends at the trailhead for the Dunes Trail – Sleeping Bear Point. If you have the time and any energy left, this is one of the most unusual trails in Michigan. The views of the Manitou islands, Sleeping Bear Point and Lake Michigan are outstanding along this 2.8-mile loop and the ghost forest you pass through intriguing. Most of the hike is through open dune country that at the end of an autumn day are painted in shades of bronze and gold by a sun heading towards the horizon. Again for a map and directions see www.MichiganTrailMaps.com.
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Final Stop: It’s been a full day and the scenery has been spectacular. Time to kick back with a cold one and re-experience the adventure. Art’s Tavern (231-334-3754; corner of Lake Street and M-22) in Glen Arbor is the perfect place to order a locally brewed beer and discuss why it takes so long for some Michiganders to discover the scenic magic of Sleeping Bear Dunes.

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Wolves in the Wild

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I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails

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I like to hike. Pure and simple. 
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I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » October, 2010

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The World in a Kelty Backpack

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When I dropped my daughter off at the airport and pulled her suitcase out of the trunk , I knew the weight of it even without a scale, a hair under 50 pounds. Jessica was moving to Argentina and needed to take part of her life with her but was too cost conscious (fiscally responsible?) to allow the airline to stick her with an overweight charge on her suitcase.

-

Jim DuFresne

-

Next to come out was her carry-on, then an oversized purse containing her netbook and finally, something that made me smile, the Kelty backpack that I gave her for Christmas one year. She said the backpack was practical; she could wear it while rolling her suitcase through the airport either here in Detroit or when she arrived to Buenos Aires. But when I mentioned, “I’ve read the Andes Mountains is pretty dramatic country,” she admitted …well, yes it would be nice to have the backpack in case she has a chance to do some hiking.

-

You go girl. Go to Argentina for a new job, go for the chance to live in a vibrant city and because the Latin American culture has always fascinated you. But most of all go for the adventure because that’s the way I raised you.

-

 Jessica was only four when I took her on her first backpacking trip. We hopped on the ferry in Leland and crossed the Manitou Passage to South Manitou Island, where we hiked 1.5 miles to Weather Station Campground. Her Pink Pony pack was loaded with her jacket and a stuffed animal, mine had everything else.

-

We slept in a tent, cooked our meals on my MSR stove while sitting on a log, and because Mom and baby brother weren’t around, ate sinful things every morning; sugar cereal and slightly squished cinnamon rolls. During the day we swam in Lake Michigan and hiked, at night we sat on a high bluff and watched huge freighters slowly pass by.

-

It was real adventure at a tender age, and when she boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland, she had a tinge of regret.

-

After that she and her brother were constant companions of mine as I traveled across Michigan hiking, camping, skiing and backpacking for a weekly column that I wrote called “Kidventures.” In high school she spent almost a year as an exchange student living at the southern tip of Chile. In her first year at Michigan State University, she joined me when I was working on a book in New Zealand, in her third year she spent it studying in Mexico. She spent a semester in grad school studying in Prague and when it was over took a month off to travel in Eastern Europe.

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Jessica on first backpacking trip to South Manitou Island.

-

Everywhere she went so did her backpack. The Kelty is more than just a convenient way of carrying something while walking up a mountain or through the narrow, cobbled streets of Lisbon. Her pack has become synonymous with traveling light, living simple and always being ready for new adventures.

-

After all, a backpack can only hold what you’re willing to carry.

-

When the job from Buenos Aires was offered Jessica debated whether she should take it or not. It was a one-way ticket and half-a-world away from home. Finally late one evening while sitting in my office discussing the pros and cons she asked me something neither of my kids had ever asked me before because they are so fiercely independent:

-

“What do you think I should do?”

-

As much as I’m going to miss her, as much as I’ve enjoyed this summer having her around helping me with www.michigantrailmaps.com while she looked for work as a new MBA grad, I didn’t hesitate a second.

-

“I’d take it in a heart beat.”

-

And when I dropped her off at the airport, not knowing when I’d see her again, I gave two bear hugs, told her I was envious of her and then watched her enter the terminal with that overstuffed Kelty strapped to her back.

-

That’s the way I raised her.

-
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Driving Father Jack’s Buick

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- Jim DuFresne has a new car but he's going to miss Father Jack's Buick, his companion in the woods.
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I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

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I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

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My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

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It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

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Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

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But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

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Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

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This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

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This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

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Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

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After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

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 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

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And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

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Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

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Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

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I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

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“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

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He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

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I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

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Pondering Life & Death on the Trail

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- Grief from the death of a good friend eased a bit when I spent a morning following a trail in the woods.
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On the day of Greg Hokans’ funeral I was hiking in Emmet County, recording trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com and enjoying a beautiful September day in northern Michigan.

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At the Elk Rapids Library that evening, my Internet connection when I’m in this corner of the state, somebody emailed me condolences to the loss of my friend and upon further searching of the web I learned that he had died a few days earlier in Cheboygan and was buried that day.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I missed it all because I was out in the woods. I wasn’t shocked because I knew he was gravely ill, he told me when I visited him a couple weeks earlier he had less than a month, but the grief that swept over me was profound and the guilt I felt for missing the end was even worse.

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 The only thing that got me through the evening was the knowledge that Greg would much rather have me out on the trail celebrating his life than in a church praying at his funeral.

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 So the next day I did that. I threw my mountain bike in the back of my car and drove to the Wildwood Hills State Forest Pathway near Burt Lake. Once there I spent the morning pedaling among the pines, trying to make sense why somebody like Greg would be told at the age of 46 that he had stage 4 colon cancer.

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I met Greg in the late 1980s. He was the new executive director of the Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau and had put together his first familiarization tour for the media. I was a freelance writer, generating travel and outdoor stories for newspapers and guidebooks.

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 He invited me up for the tour and we hit it off the minute we met. He was a lifelong Yooper. I loved the U.P. He needed to get the word out how wonderful Marquette was. I needed material to sell. We both had a passion for the outdoors and adventure.

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After that I didn’t need to wait for a media junket to visit Marquette. For the next eight or nine years I would just drive north and walk into his office, often unannounced. Didn’t matter. Greg would drop everything, tell the receptionist he was gone for the day and we’d take off to “research stories.”

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Greg Hokans at Fort Mackinac

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 We’d swing by Jean Kay’s Pasties & Subs Shop in town to pick up lunch and then Greg would hand me a media kit, a large envelope stuffed with the latest visitor’s guide, brochures, press releases. With a media kit in the hands of a media person, it was now official. We could go and play without worrying about board of directors, editors or wives.

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We’d climb Hogsback Mountain, paddle Craig Lake, spend an afternoon following old two-tracks looking for moose, hike into the Rocking Chair Lakes Wilderness, try to catch a brook trout in front of a waterfall because it would make for a great photo.

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He’d promote, I’d publish. Marquette and the surrounding region never received so much good press.

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It was a Friday when I arrived at the trailhead of Wildwood Hills and, despite a car in the parking lot, didn’t see another soul on the trail which I was thankful for.

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Wildwood Hills was developed in the 1970s primarily for Nordic skiers but the mountain biking boom of the 1980s turned the trail into a popular weekend destination for off-road cyclists. The pathway is actually a 12-mile system of three loops with the perimeter of it forming a natural route of almost 9 miles.

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 It’s not overly scenic but not technical either and that’s why I chose it. The trails are old forest roads and even railroad beds left over from turn-of-the-century logging, making them wide paths with gentle curves and climbs. It’s also well posted. I could pedal through the woods while my mind wandered and it did.

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I thought about life and the end of it. I thought about my purpose here and why a God would take away somebody as young, honest, hardworking and good hearted as Greg. Mostly I just thought about our times together.

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We would work on stories and sometimes even create them. I once showed up Dec. 1 because that’s when the snowmobile season begins in Michigan. Only nobody snowmobiles then because there’s not enough snow to ride. Or so they think.

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In Marquette, Greg borrowed a trailer and an old station wagon to pull it, we loaded two snowmobiles on it and off we went north of the city to spend the day driving around the rugged Huron Mountains looking for enough snow to snowmobile.

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It took a while but we certainly were in no hurry. Nether one of us could think of a better way to spend an afternoon. Finally late in the day we found an area with a base of 10 or 12 inches on the backside of a ridge so we jumped on the sleds and rode through the woods, breaking our own trails. The entire ride, including stops to stage photos, probably lasted less than 40 minutes before we were back at the car, breaking out the still-warm Jean Kay’s pasties and a couple of beers.

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Here’s to the start of the snowmobile season!

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I was thinking about that when I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the pathway. I backtracked a quarter mile to the last trail sign, saw the missed junction and continued on, letting my thoughts wander again.

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The time spent alone in the forest worked. I emerged at the trailhead feeling less burden by grief and sadness. I realized that more important than a funeral or being at his deathbed was the fact I was able to see him just weeks before at Mackinac Island where Greg’s final job was as the marketing manager of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

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From his office at Fort Mackinac we walked over to the Tearoom Restaurant and sat outside to that incredible view of the island and the Straits of Mackinac. We talked about jobs and kids and our adventures together. When I asked about the cancer and his feelings, it became emotional so we pulled back to reminiscing.

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The last thing Greg did was hand me a media kit for Mackinac State Historic Parks and pick up the tab for lunch. “Have to keep it official,” he said but we both knew it never was.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183#comments - Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:21 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=183 - - After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 - 0 - - - Growing Old with a Sense of Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165#comments - Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:15 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=165 - - Editor’s Note: This is the first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

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My right knee aches.

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Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I’m getting older.

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Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

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When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

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I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

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Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

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Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

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I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

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I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

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It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

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A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

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I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

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I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

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Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

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I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

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Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Cross Country Skiing

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Alone in the Winter Woods

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- While cross-country skiing in Wilderness State Park, Jim DuFresne learned you're never alone in the woods even when you think you are.
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I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

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There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

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I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

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At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

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When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

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Swamp Line Trail

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

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In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

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They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

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I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

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It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

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I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

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A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

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I was definitely not alone in the woods.

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            *                                  *                                  * 

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Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

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Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

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One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

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Crooked River Lodge.

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

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outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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Dave Forbush and the Art of Grooming

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On a day when the wind was nonexistent, when the woods were covered by a fresh inch of snow, when the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds every now and then –  in other words, a perfect day for Nordic skiing – I was on some of the best trails in Northern Michigan but nowhere near my skis.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Instead I was chugging along in a Pisten Bully groomer. Dave Forush was at the controls, preparing his trails at Forbush Corner for the weekend crowd who would begin descending on the Nordic center early Saturday morning. I was in the seat next to him, measuring them with a GPS unit for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By the end of the day I had been on every trail of his twice, all 24 kilometers of them, and recorded my coordinates. I was also given a lesson in the art of grooming.

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Laying track is definitely not just pushing snow around. The art of grooming is part science, a touch of meteorology, some old fashion crystal ball gazing and in the end a steady hand around hairpin turns.

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Dave studies various weather web sites, checks the temperatures, measures the base that’s on the ground now and the shape it is in. Then he tries to anticipate what snow might arrive Friday night before the crowds do on Saturday morning, plots a strategy and we hop in the Pisten Bully, one of two groomers at Forbush Corner.

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A groomed track at Forbush Corner.

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The first time around, he rolled the trails with a huge cylinder on the back of the groomer that weighed more than a ton. Powdery fluff might be an appealing image for downhill skiers but for Nordic tracks you want the base compressed and the snow consistent with as little air in it as possible.

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Dave’s mission was to work a pair steering levers so he didn’t gouge the sides of the trail that would result in dirt and debris on the newly compacted base. At times he looked like he was playing a video game.

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My mission was to hang on. At one point we were pitched at the edge of a bottomless hill called Screamer and it was like being in a roller coaster at Cedar Point, only we were in the middle of the woods. When we started down I instinctively grabbed the dashboard in front of me.

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At 2 p.m., when we finished the first run, we went right back out again. This time we set the skater’s lane and the tracks for classic skiers.

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At one point when the sun came out briefly we paused and looked at the artwork behind us. The trail was a thing of beauty with the unmarred corduroy-surface of the skater’s lane and the crisp edges and smooth sides of the classic tracks.

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“That’s as pretty a track as you’ll ever see,” said Dave.

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It was indeed.

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We finished around 5:30 p.m. after having spent more than eight hours in the groomer. That evening three more inches fell and Dave was back out grooming at 6 a.m. on Saturday so when the first skiers arrived three hours later they found perfect tracks and lanes.

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A groomer at Forbush Corner.

The Pisten Bully groomer at Forbush Corner.

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That’s why it is so stunning when occasionally somebody enters the Forbush Corner lodge, sees that there is a trail fee to ski and then says thanks but no thanks and leaves to find some place to ski for free. As if perfect tracks and $180,000 groomers, not to mention Dave’s time, weren’t worth anything.

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For too many of these people the sport of Nordic skiing is synonyms with shuffling along on the crusty surface of a golf course or breaking trail for an hour in the woods. Something you do for free or for a small donation tossed in the fee pipe at the trailhead.

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I have nothing against backcountry skiing and do it often, particularly on the state forest pathways. But until you have spent a day on a well-groomed trail that allows you to discover the natural rhythm that is Nordic skiing, you haven’t been Nordic skiing.

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You’ve been slogging it in the woods.

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This winter stride instead of shuffle with a visit to any Nordic center that puts even a third as much effort into grooming their trails as Dave does. It’s more than worth the price of the trail fee.

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You may never ski a golf course again.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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First Time Backpacking? No Worries

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- A first-time backpacker wonders if she and her boyfriend will survive Isle Royale National Park. Just keep the pack under 40 pounds says Jim DuFresne.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

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- Comments RSS - TrackBack - 6 comments

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    Teresa

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    - in May 24th, 2012 @ 20:10 -
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    Only a little over 4 weeks til we leave for Copper Harbor and then Isle Royale. I actually want to start our trip by crossing Tobin Harbor and heading to Look out Louise first. Because, in your book you said many people miss that part of the trail and many others will be heading to Daisy Farm the first night. I thought we’d start in the opposite direction.
    -Like you said, I have been dehydrating fruits, vegtables, chicken and next will be scrambled eggs for breakfast. Already have the elk jerkey made and a number of homemade peanutbutter granola bars for lunches.
    -We have 1 pot, 2 coffee cups and a few cooking/eating utensils and a small stove.
    -I think I will add some italian seasoning to my tomato paste and dehydrate some. (Thanks for that idea) I had thought about taking a can of paste, but never thought about dehydrating it!
    -As far as everything else we take, I just told my boyfriend this morning that I’m going to help pack his backpack. He’ll be putting things in and when he turns around I’ll be taking them out!
    -I’ll be writing when we get back in the middle of July.
    -Teresa

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    Jim DuFresne

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    - in May 24th, 2012 @ 20:48 -
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    Teresa, That’s an excellent itinerary. From Lookout Louise to Lane cove campground is 7.2 miles, an ideal first day along a very scenic route. Lane Cove is a pleasant campground to stay at. The next day you could move onto Daisy Farm along the Greenstone Ridge Trail or Moskey Basin if you up to it.
    -Have a great trip and let us know if your boyfriend makes it back from the island.

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    Teresa

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    - in July 13th, 2012 @ 16:07 -
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    Well, I’ve got to say that even though I read your book about Isle Royale, until you get there, you really don’t know what your in for. we met a lot of “first timers”, like ourselves, and we all had the same comment – “we’ve learned a lot” and “why did I bring THIS?”.

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    I guess if I’m going to ask for your advice, I should actually heed it! Our first mistake (because we didn’t think we had packed anything that wasn’t necessary) we did not weigh our backpacks…MISTAKE!!! Like you said in your book if it’s too heavy your going to be miserable. We were.

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    Anyway, Day 1: My boyfriend (I believe) was suffering from heat exhaustion by the time we stopped and set up our tent. He seemed somewhat incoherent and was not able to help much. He immediately went inside, removed some clothing to cool off and I made him drink more water. He took a long nap. Upon waking I made up a packet of gatorade and he ate some dehydrated bananas we brought.

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    Day 2: Only approximately 20-30 minutes into our day, the path was overgrown with vegetation so I couldn’t see my feet. I stepped onto either a rock or tree root and my foot slipped causing me to fall forward and as I did it felt like Verlander threw a fast pitch at my right calf. OUCH! I tried to catch myself when my left foot hit the ground and that may have worked, except when my right foot found the ground again my leg immediately cramped up like a HUGE charlie horse and down I went. My boyfriend had to help me up and to a downed tree so that an ace bandage could be put on. I hobbled flat footed (I couldn’t flex my foot or calf at all) using my left foot so much that the strain was taking it’s toll on my hip and thigh.

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    With this injury our hiking plans were changed dramatically.

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    All in all we were still able to joke about any of the not-so-good things that we went through at the end of the day. We also got some amazing pictures and met lots of people.

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    I’m not sure I’ll get him back to the Island, but I want a “re-do”!!!

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    Teresa

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    Oh yeah, when we returned from the Isle Royale I went to a walk-in clinic. I have a torn/pulled muscle and will be resting and going to rehab soon, before I can return to work. Not exactly a “vacation”!

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    Jim DuFresne

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    - in July 13th, 2012 @ 18:13 -
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    Wow, Teresa, if you never went backpacking again, I wouldn’t blame you. The fact that you want a re-do, I admire you.

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    jeff mcwilliams

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    - in July 13th, 2012 @ 18:32 -
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    I’m not sure where Teresa comes from, but she might want to look into hooking up with a local outdoors group or club. Hiking/backpacking with others would allow her to take advantage of the experience and wisdom of others and get some face to face advice about her gear and techniques. She may even be able to take a beginner backpacking class.

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    Check meetup.com for backpacking and hiking groups in your area.

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    Isle royale is a beautiful place. I was there with a small group in 2009 and can’t wait to go back to see more trails.

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    Teresa

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    - in July 16th, 2012 @ 01:02 -
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    Thanks Jeff for that info and website that I can check out.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

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Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness!

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- Approaching his 40th birthday Roy Kranz wanted to do something physically challenging to mark the mile point in his life...like hike the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail twice in under 36 hours.
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Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Roy Kranz

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My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

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At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

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Waterfall

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

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These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

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Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

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On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

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Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

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Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

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My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

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As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

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When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

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We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

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It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

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Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

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Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

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As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

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We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

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It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

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Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Cycling

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Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt

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- Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior and that's great because she's one of us, somebody who maintains their sanity by escaping outdoors.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

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Elk Rapids: Michigan’s Retro Bike Paradise!

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- Riding retro? The best place to take that clunker is Elk Rapids where the town is overwhelmed by retro bikes during the summer.
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Editor’s Note: It’s been too hot to hike so Jim DuFresne has been hanging around his cottage in Elk Rapids the past week, trying to stay cool, and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com. For more on the Ride Around Torch see the Cherry Capital Cycling club web site.

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On Sunday there will be hundreds of bicycles in and around Elk Rapids along with spandex shorts, colorful riding jerseys, Camelbacks and aerodynamic helmets, not to mention a lot of serious cyclists.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The reason for the two-wheel festival is because this small town in southwest Antrim County is the start and end of the Ride Around Torch, a 63-mile ride that encircles Torch Lake. Staged by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club, this event is often called the most scenic bike ride in the state, where more times than not you looking at water while pedaling.

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On Monday Elk Rapids will be back to normal but bicycles will still be there. Only the 21-speeds and all-carbon bicycles will be gone and the fat tire, clunkers will be back.

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Elk Rapids; the retro bike capital of Michigan.

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In the late 1800s Elk Rapids was challenging Traverse City as the economic powerhouse of the region, today it’s a sleepy village that has become a haven for retro bicycles, cruisers, beach bikes, urban bikes or, in my case, a bicycle that was actually built in the 1960s.

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I ride around town in a single-speed Schwinn that still has the registration sticker Grosse Isle Township made me purchase and display in 1965 as if kids on bicycles were part of a communist plot to take over the world.

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When you want to slow or stop on my Schwinn, you pedal backwards. How cool is that? 

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Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina.

Retro bikes at the Elk Rapids Lower Marina during a sunset on Lake Michigan.

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Retro bikes dominate this town with locals and visitors a like because clunkers are much more practical. This is a place that demands you to ride slowly and stop often, making clip-in pedals a hassle to say the least.

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Elk Rapids is incredibly scenic as it is literarily surrounded on three sides by water. Elk Lake nudges into it and from there Elk River splits the town in half before emptying into Lake Michigan. Oh, and on the northside of town is Bass Lake.

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There is a spot downtown where you can look to your left at the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay and see the skyline of Traverse City. To the right you can see the coastline wind north to Little Traverse Bay and due west is the end of Mission Peninsula and the blue, endless horizon of Lake Michigan.

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Stunning.

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This is also a small town, population 3,000, so you need to stop at the bakery before they run out of hand-cut donuts or the library to pick up a novel for the beach or to catch up to Joe so you can ask him what the movie is next week at his single-screen theater.

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The marinas also contribute to the town’s retro craze. Blessed with a watery location, the village has two of them; the Lower Marina overlooks Lake Michigan and its slips are filled with large sailboats and cruisers. The Upper Marina is on Elk River and the pontoons and speed boats docked there have access to the Antrim County Chain of Lakes that includes Torch Lake, Bellaire Lake and Clam Lake.

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The marinas maintain an army of bikes – retro bikes of course – that any boater can borrow to ride around town. If you arrive without one, you can rent a retro bike at the new Right Tree Adventure Rentals Shop  just off Main Street.

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Add it all up and this up-and-coming trendy town with great restaurants and wide beaches is like a Mackinac Island with vehicles in the summer. Cars replace the horses-and-carriages and everybody drives, pedals and walks cautiously and courteously with drivers always waving through two-wheelers and pedestrians.

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Let’s face it, if you’re driving through this trendy beach community, marveling at the beautiful scenery or the historical buildings on Main Street, the last thing you want to do is cause an eco-friendly cyclist to have a header on an old clunker like mine. Would not be cool.

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 So on Sunday a lot of us will enjoy the beginning and end of the Ride Around Torch and a small town overwhelmed by top-of-the-line road bikes.

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On Monday we’ll be back on our clunkers.

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Paddling & Surviving the Au Sable Marathon

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- You can feel in the air and see it on the river. The buzz is building for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.
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Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. For more information check out Grayling Visitors Bureau, the Oscoda Visitors Bureau or the Black Bear Bicycle Tour web site.

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If you are heading to Grayling for the July 28 start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon don’t forget that at MichiganTrailMaps.com we just completed our coverage of Hartwick Pines State Park with the addition of the park’s mountain bike trails.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I was concentrating on a trout that was rising in the middle of the Au Sable River, trying to float a drag-free dry fly over it, when suddenly there was a canoe within arm’s reach of me.

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“Whoa!” I said as they totally caught me off guard but before I could add “you guys are quiet paddlers” they were around the next bend and out of sight.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Must be marathon time.

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The two paddlers were obviously veteran racers training for the annual Au Sable River Canoe Marathon. They were flying down the river in a slim and low-riding C-2 canoe, paddling with determination and almost mechanical precision. No stroke was a wasted motion.

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Effortless effort.

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It’s how you train for what some call the most grueling sporting event in North America. This summer the 65th Au Sable River Canoe Marathon will be staged July 28-29 in Grayling, the starting point, and Oscoda, the finish line.

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In between 20 to 30 teams will compete in a 120-mile race that lasts from 14 to 19 hours and consists of some 55,000 stokes. It’s why organizers call the all-night run down the Au Sable the longest non-stop professional canoe race in the United States.

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They also call it “The World’s Toughest Spectator Race!” During the event more than 40,000 spectators are expected to converge on the two towns and the river in between.

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An estimated 12,000 people will witness the start in Grayling when at 9 p.m. paddlers dash “LeMans” style down Main Street carrying their canoes into the Au Sable at the Old Au Sable Fly Shop docks. Others spectators will gather along the final 14 miles of the river to its mouth on Lake Huron in Oscoda on Sunday morning to watch the canoeists wrap up their ordeal.

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But the real marathon fans, the spectator that has no equal in the world of sports, are the ones who hopscotch in cars and vans throughout the night to cheer on the racers as they paddle beneath bridges, pass public access points and portage their canoe around six hydroelectric dams.

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C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

C-2 race canoes at the start of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Grayling.

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The first race was staged in 1947 when a pair of Grayling canoers finished the route in 21:03. Ralph Sawyer, who founded Sawyer Canoes in Oscoda, won the first of eight titles in 1956 when he and his partner broke the 17-hour barrier.

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But the most amazing paddler was Serge Corbin of Quebec. Corbin won the race 18 times, including 15 out of 17 years from 1987 to 2003. In 1994 he and his partner broke 14 hours when they arrived in Oscoda in 13:58.08 and the mark is still the Marathon record.

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For that brutal and record-shattering run down the Au Sable the pair of Canadians won $5,000. They’re professional canoe racers but they are clearly not in it for the money.

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Most of the field isn’t thinking about winning, just finishing. Not all will. But in 1999 a 74-year-old Al Widing, Sr. teamed up with a “youthful” 54-year-old Robert Bradford to complete the run in 15:21:22, finishing 15th overall.

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And in the year that Corbin set his Marathon record, a pair of 15-year-olds from Grayling, Matt Ashton and Mo Hardwood, Jr., arrived in Oscoda in 15:30.46 to become the youngest team to have ever have completed the Marathon.

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I suspect that for youths in and around Crawford County, ever just entering the Au Sable Canoe Marathon, much less finishing it, is as high a pedestal that you can step onto.

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A half hour after the first C-2 race canoe flew past me in the Au Sable, a second one appeared, manned by two boys who appeared to be in high school. Shirts were off, youthful muscles bugling in their upper arms and shoulders, beads of sweat running down their backs.

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They didn’t have the precision that that first pair displayed. Their strokes seem to be more of a struggle, not as nearly as fluid as their counterparts down the river.

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But you could see the determination on their face to take on the Au Sable and survive a 120 miles of non-stop paddling.

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That’s good. They’re going to need such resolve at 3 a.m. Sunday, July 29 when they have been up all night paddling and still have still have nine more hours of strokes in front of them.

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Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon

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- There was no better way to deliver the first order from the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop than on my bicycle.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexf57f.html b/blog/indexf57f.html deleted file mode 100755 index d2e9683..0000000 --- a/blog/indexf57f.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,188 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Isle Royale National Park - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - First Time Backpacking? No Worries - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325#comments - Thu, 24 May 2012 15:38:22 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=325 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

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Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

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Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

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But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

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But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

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Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

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People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

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Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

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Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

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Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

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Keep the backpack as light as possible

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This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

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You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

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You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

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You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

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Stop often

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Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

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Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

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Bring Moleskin!

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The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

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Eat Well

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Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

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Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

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Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

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Limit your itinerary

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A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

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If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

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The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

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On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

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As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

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Neither will you.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=325 - 6 - - - diff --git a/blog/indexf5ea.html b/blog/indexf5ea.html deleted file mode 100755 index 1840428..0000000 --- a/blog/indexf5ea.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,323 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Alaska - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Fishing Tale: Brown Bears & Big Sockeyes - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442#comments - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:29:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=442 - - Editor’s Note: Where has Jim DuFresne been? Turns out MichiganTrailMaps.com’s main blogger has been in Alaska the past couple of weeks catching sockeye salmon. Here is his  latest tale from the Final Frontier. Don’t for get to check out his books at our e-shop, including 12 Classic Trout Streams in Michigan.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - Sally Jewell: She’s No James Watt - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433#comments - Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:16:26 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=433 - - Editor’s Note: It’s been a busy speaking season this winter for Jim DuFresne but his last gig is this Saturday when he will appear at the author’s table at 11:45 a.m. at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo at Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center, 14500 E.12 Mile Road, in Warren. After that you’ll find Jim out on the trail. For more on the expo see the show’s web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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I’ve spent a lot of time in National Parks, national forests and other parcels of federally-owned land and twice I’ve met the person responsible for their upkeep and protection; the Secretary of the Interior.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first time was in 1981. I was living in Juneau, Alaska and a friend who was newscaster invited me to join him at the state capitol where James Watt was going to to address the Alaska legislature.

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President Ronald Reagan’s choice for Secretary of the Interior was a controversial and polarizing figure. He endorsed the rampant development of federal lands by foresters and ranchers, sought to eliminate regulations for oil and mining companies, and once directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of National Parks. He accepted the position saying “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.”

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A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska

A 1981 demonstration against James Watt in Juneau, Alaska, complete with chainsaws.

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The day he arrived in Juneau hundreds gathered outside the capitol with their chainsaws and just when Watt stepped up to the podium inside they revved them up and held them high in the air. You couldn’t hear yourself think much less Watt speak.

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The second time was in 2008 when I was invited to a reception celebrating the opening of a new REI store in Ann Arbor. Addressing a crowd of local environmental groups, outdoor clubs and conservation organizations that evening was Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI.

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Later, when Jewell was inspecting the displays of outdoor equipment while sipping a glass of wine, two of us walked up and struck a conversation with her.

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She had never been in Michigan before other than to change planes in Detroit and immediately engaged us in where we go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, activities she said she thoroughly enjoys. She was impressed with our descriptions of wild places like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Isle Royale National Park and laughed when we told her that the Upper Peninsula was such a wonderful outdoor playground we call it “God’s Country.”

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We chatted for more than 15 minutes, she was that approachable.

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Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior, is not James Watt. For that we should all be thankful.

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While Jewell’s background includes stints as an oil company engineer and a commercial banker, since 2005 she has served as chief executive of REI and has earned national recognition for her support of outdoor recreation and habitat conservation. Supporters say she is an ideal candidate to balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates between promoting resource development and preserving the nation’s natural heritage.

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If nominated, she has her work cut out for her. She will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

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I hope she is nominated for the simple reason she’s one of us, somebody who heads outdoors to unwind from urban stresses or challenges herself to new heights. Literally, because Jewell is also a mountain climber.

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Sally Jewell,

Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior.

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A native of the Seattle area and a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jewell has been a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. As a child she sailed with her family in the Puget Sound and camped throughout the Pacific Northwest, as an adult said she has climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington and Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. She bikes to work.

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But what impressed me the most that evening in Ann Arbor was Jewell’s passion for getting children outdoors as a way to save the environment. The younger, the better. Wait too long and they rarely develop that enthusiasm for the outdoors when they are adults.

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Thus she doesn’t see other outdoor shops scattered across Michigan as competitors, rather cohorts in an effort to promote trail development and outdoor recreation and to encourage support of public lands and parks. We’re all in this together.

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“Our competitors are TV, video games and kids who are over scheduled,” Jewell said.

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That’s something I never heard James Watt say.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=433 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=242 - 3 - - - Riding The Alaska State Ferries To Adventure - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217#comments - Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:27:04 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=217 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, just filed his second blog entry from his summer of wanderlust in the Last Frontier. We really hope he comes back some day. -
 
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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=217 - 1 - - - Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203#comments - Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:28:34 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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- diff --git a/blog/indexf761.html b/blog/indexf761.html deleted file mode 100755 index f5cce29..0000000 --- a/blog/indexf761.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,306 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Guidebooks - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Racing to a Campsite on South Manitou Island - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348#comments - Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:53:44 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=348 - -

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Backpacking in Michigan

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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

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By Jim DuFresne

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One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

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For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

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On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

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I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

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It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

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The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

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Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

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I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

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Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

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That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

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And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

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I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

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I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

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“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

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I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

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It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

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This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=348 - 3 - - - Selling A Book and Taking On Amazon - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298#comments - Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:25:09 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=298 - - Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

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What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

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I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

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But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

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As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

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Our first sale!

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It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

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Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

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MichiganTrailMaps.comThe cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

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Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

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I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

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Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

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MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

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Match that Amazon!

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When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

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The next day she wrote back to me:

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I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

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Sometimes being small is better.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=298 - 0 - - - Upper Bushman Lake: A Place To Escape - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137#comments - Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:12 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=137 - - The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It will only shrink.

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As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

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Death, taxes and development.

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I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

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In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

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I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

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Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

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 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

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Upper Bushman Lake

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

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Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

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Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

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That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

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 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

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Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

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The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

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But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

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 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=137 - 4 - - - Wolves in the Wild - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56#comments - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:25:40 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=56 - - I was up north, researching trails in Antrim County for www.michigantrailmaps.com, when the press release arrived in my inbox. The tag line was intriguing:

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Wolf Pup Captured and Released in the Northern Lower Peninsula

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The release was fascinating:

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“A USDA Wildlife Services employee was recently successful in capturing and releasing a wolf pup in Cheboygan County. This occurred during an effort to trap and place a radio-collar on a wolf following the verification of a wolf pack in the northern Lower Peninsula earlier this year.”

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And the attached photo seemed to take forever to download. The wifi spot I was using was crawling and the photo came in one bar at a time at an agonizingly slow pace. But finally there it was, on the screen of my laptop, the first documented wolf pup to be born in the Lower Peninsula in almost a century.

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“This is the first evidence of wolf breeding in the Lower Peninsula since the population was extirpated in the early 1900s,” said Jennifer Kleitch, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment,. “It indicates that we have at least one breeding pair in the region and the potential for a growing population.”

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Wolves in the Lower Peninsula, not even that far from where I was hiking. A pack of wolves that is growing and, no doubt, expanding its territory.

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The wild has returned to the Lower Peninsula.

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I have never seen a wolf in Michigan despite my extensive time spent at Isle Royale. As author of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, I have spent months in the backcountry of the Lake Superior island and yet the closest I ever came to wolves was listening to them howl one night while camping at Feldtmann Lake.

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But that’s all it takes – spotting their tracks in a swamp, seeing the bleached bone remains of a winter kill or listening to a pair call out to each other – to make you realize that you’re not alone. You’re simply a visitor in somebody else’s home.

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I don’t even need to see evidence of their arrival in the Lower Peninsula, much less the wolves themselves. Knowing they are out there, somewhere in the woods, is enough to instill a sense of wilderness in the places I hike for a day or longer with a backpack. Just seeing the signs at many of the trailheads in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that announce “You Are A Visitor In Cougar Habitat” adds a quality to an area you can’t find in Peoria, Iowa or Southeast Michigan for that matter.

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Wolf pup

Michigan's newest wolf pup

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In the end, that’s all I need. If I encounter a wolf in the wild, and I have twice in Alaska, or a black bear which I have several times in Michigan, it’s always an unexpected occurrence and one of those moments that leaves you both nervous and excited. A moment you rarely forget.

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But what’s really important to me is the notion that they’re there, that the land is rugged and wild enough for bears, cougars and wolves to survive, even prosper. That the places where I go to escape the trappings of civilization are as primitive and pure today as they were a century ago when wolves freely roamed across Michigan. Across all of it.

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“The 23-pound male pup was in good health. An identification tag was placed in the ear and the pup was released on-site unharmed.”

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=56 - 0 - - - Sharing a Lifetime of Love for Trails - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30#comments - Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:43:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=30 - - I like to hike. Pure and simple.  -

I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world. 

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I like to hike whether it’s for only 30 minutes on an interpretive path or two weeks across Isle Royale National Park. I like to hike because it cleanses the mind, refreshes the soul and –  literally – strengthens the heart. 

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I like to hike because it’s uncomplicated, unrushed and inexpensive. All I need is a pair of well worn boots and a trail. I’ve been lacing up the same pair of boots for years and I’ve devoted most of my life to finding the trail. 

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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In Alaska I went from being a sports editor to an outdoor writer. I gave up covering basketball and football to write guidebooks to wilderness areas. My first book, Tramping in New Zealand, was about backpacking in that Down Under country and was published by Lonely Planet. My second was a travel guide to Alaska with an emphasizes on escaping into the wild on the cheap. My third, Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes, was a guide to Michigan’s wonderful island park. 

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Today trails form the basis of almost everything I do outdoors; hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing. 

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I’m lucky because I grew up and now live in a state that is blessed with trails. The Michigan State Park system has more than 90 units that are laced with nature walks, foot paths and mountain bike areas, so are the four National Forests in Michigan and the county parks that are found in every county. Isle Royale has 160 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has more than 100 miles, the Michigan State Forests have 65 pathways that total 750 miles. The longest trail in the nation, the North Country Trail, crosses the Upper Peninsula and then the Lower Peninsula for a hike of 1,150 miles! 

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Most of my writing career has been focused on covering these trails in guidebooks, newspaper articles and magazine features. But due to the demise of print media, fueled by the Internet, I have recently chosen a different path. 

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Earlier this year a handful of us launched www.MichiganTrailMaps.com, an online resource for trail users. The basis of the web site is to help people find a trail, whether they want a long hike, an overnight trek, a winding single track. Coverage includes custom maps that can be downloaded and printed, detailed coverage, photos and, in the near future, video. 

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You can choose a trail by length, activity, the region  in which it’s located or by the county. The site contains features and news on Michigan trails, organizations and resources for trail users and a newsletter that will highlight the newest trails that we’re researching. 

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You will also be able to read my blog, Trail Talk, a place where I plan to deliver commentary, views, humor, and the random thoughts that have occurred to me while following a trail through the woods. 

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Hiker at Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks, MI

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With our limited staff, we realize that it’s going to take time to build up an inventory of trails on our site because we’re not just posting a park map and listing directions. We’re actually out there, mapping and photographing the trails so we can provide the best coverage possible. Still within a half year of launching, we’re up to 75 trails, more than most guidebooks offer, and can easily envision the day when we have hundreds online in every county of Michigan. 

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To those who have purchased my guidebooks and read my thousands of newspapers articles in the past, I want to say that I deeply appreciate it. Now I hope that I can encourage you to continue following me. My work is the same; promoting my passion for trails. It’s just the delivery that has changed.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Archives from month » January, 2012

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In Search of Snow and a Groomed Trail

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- The first Nordic ski of the season, no matter how late it comes or how little snow is on the ground, is always the sweetest.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

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By Jim DuFresne

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When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

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So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

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Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

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By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

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The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

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A skier at Petoskey State Park.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

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I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

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This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

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In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

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 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

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When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

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I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

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It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

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            *                         *                    *

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 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

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If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

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 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

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Time To Give Back To Trails

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- We have much to be thankful for heading into 2012, including the impressive trail work in northwest Michigan by TART Trails, Inc.
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Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

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Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

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And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

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But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

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As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

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It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

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The TART Trail in Traverse City.

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Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

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They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20th anniversary.

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Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

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Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

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That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

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If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

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Building a trail somewhere.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Tag » Shingle Mill Pathway

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A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests

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A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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By Jim DuFresne

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The salmon runs in Alaska are legendary, well known by fly fishermen around the world. Alaska also has more bears than the rest of the states combined, including 100,000 black bears and more than 30,000 brown bears or 95% of the U.S. population.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The first thing you learn when you arrive in the 49th State to fish for salmon is that where there is one there’s usually the other. Such was the case at the Russian River Campground, a Chugach National Forest facility in the heart of the Kenai Peninsula.

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I arrived at this 80-site campground with Ed Fogels, a good friend from Anchorage, on June 10 to a surreal scene. Every site was filled, most having been reserved six months in advance, ours included, because the opener for sockeye salmon was that night at 12:01 a.m.

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The Russian River with its fly-fishing-only regulation is one of the most popular sockeye salmon streams in Alaska, the reason strolling through the campground were men, women and entire families outfitted in waders and vests, carrying a rod or two.

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Bear Spray

An angler with his canister of pepper spray.

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But this was also bear country, the signs of that were everywhere. Literally. Every site had a large, metal bear box for food storage with a sign WARNING Bears In The Area! Every picnic table had a yellow sign stapled to it that said WARNING Food & Odors Attract Bears! The campground dumpster had a sign asking you to be responsible with your garbage and Help Keep Alaska’s Bears Wild.

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The most obvious sign you were in bear country was hanging on the wading belt of almost every angler; a can of pepper spray.

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Brown bears, big fish –  sockeyes run between six and 12 pounds –  and a campground full of anglers with a serious case of salmon fever. The level of anticipated excitement for this opener was amazing.

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We passed up the 12:01 start. Ed’s theory is that the best time to be on the water was during a lull between the midnight anglers and those who rather wait until a more civilized time to fish like after their first cup of coffee in the morning. We arrived at the river at 4 a.m.

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It had been light for almost an hour when I stepped into the Russian River for the first time, clutching an eight-weight rod. Two things immediately challenged me; casting a fly line rigged with 16-pound tippet and eight 3/0 split shots on it and spotting the salmon, the blue ghosts, as Ed called them, among the boulders and rocks in the Russian.

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I struggled all morning with both. By early afternoon I was alone at a hole, still looking for my first hook-up when my fly snagged a boulder in the middle of the river and I lost my hook, split shots and tippet. I re-rigged, lost that one a few minutes later and re-rigged again.

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When my line stopped in the swift current yet again I gave my rod a hard yank in frustration, thinking I was on the verge of losing my third fly in less than 30 minutes. That’s when a 10-pound-plus sockeye leaped clear out of the river, a starling acrobatic display that was so close I could see my purple streamer hooked in the corner of its mouth.

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I almost wet my waders.

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“I call them sticks of dynamite,” the angler camping next to us said that evening. “They’re that explosive.”

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Angler with a sockeye

An angler fights a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Russian River.

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The fish leaped again and again as I fanatically reeled in my excess line. Then it took off downstream and there was little I could do to stop my reel from spinning wildly.

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At this point I experienced something I never have on the Au Sable catching my usual 10 or 12-inch trout; I was down to my backing. There, stretched out a 100 feet downriver from me, was my $80 fly line with one end tethered to a rampaging sockeye and the other to my backing by a knot that I may or may not have taken the time to tie properly.

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I pumped my rod wildly as if I was deep sea fishing to work in my line and then fought that fish for at least 10 minutes before it broke off, almost effortlessly it seemed.

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I lost that sockeye but I was hooked.

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On Wednesday I hooked and landed – netting the fish was often the most challenging aspect – my limit of three sockeyes. On Thursday I hooked into 16 sockeyes before I was able to land the first one. I caught my limit that day as well.

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I’m basically a catch-and-release angler, either it’s the law like the Au Sable Holy Waters or I’m just too lazy to deal with the bluegills and crappies I land belly boating. I’ll never keep a bass only because I can’t fathom killing something that just gave me so much pleasure on a fly rod.

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But somehow on the Russian it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t catch and eat that salmon a bear will or bald eagles, seagulls, foxes and mergansers will after it spawns. One thing for sure, that fish is not returning to the ocean from which it came.

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Anglers with sockeye salmon.

Anglers hold a stringer of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Russian River.

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You can “Disney-ify” this and call it the circle of life. Or you can simple acknowledge that salmon is the protein that sustains all of Alaska, residents and wildlife alike.

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On Friday when I reached the river at 5 a.m. I was the only one around. The anglers from opening day had to rush back to Anchorage for at least a morning at the office. The weekend crowd hadn’t shown up yet.

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I was casting into my hole when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. It was my first bear, standing on the opposite bank a 150 yards up stream. It was staring into the water, doing basically what I was trying to do, spot a sockeye.

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Signs around the campground and the river say that if a bear approaches, give up your hole. If you have a fish on, cut your line. If the bruin is still staring at you, toss that stringer of salmon into the river.

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I just watched him. You never want to have an encounter with a 500-pound brown bear but you sure hate to leave Alaska without seeing one. I watched that bear for 10 minutes until it left the river and disappeared into the woods.

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That’s when the first sockeye of the day hit my purple streamer.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=442 - 0 - - - A Trusted Friend: My Dana Backpack - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420#comments - Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=420 - - North Manitou Island Map

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Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

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Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

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By Jim DuFresne

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My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

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Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

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Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

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At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

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But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

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Dana on the Chilkoot

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

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I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

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Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

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The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

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Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

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In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

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Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

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When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

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The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

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I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

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Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

-]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=420 - 0 - - - Lessons From Alaska’s Chilkoot Trail - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242#comments - Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:29 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=242 - - You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

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And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

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Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

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Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

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What my son learned:

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When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

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Chilkoot Campsite

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

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Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

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But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

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There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

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At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

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For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

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 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

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Miners climb the Chilkoot Trail

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

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Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

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The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

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We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

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Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

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It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

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Even worse I had to take it back.

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 Always Pack a Stove 

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We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

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Climbing The Golden Stairs

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

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And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

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It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

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By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

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In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

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No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

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  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

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 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
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The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

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Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

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Descending Chilkoot Trail

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

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What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

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But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

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 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

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We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

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Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

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I’m eating lunch at my favorite restaurant in Alaska. The food is good – I’m having a halibut burger with roasted red-skin potatoes – and some of the most affordable you’ll find in this land-of-high-prices. The view from my table is priceless. I looking out at mountains and glaciers and small wooded islands. Suddenly there’s a pair of dolphins and then a few seals pop up and before I can wipe my chin from the final bite of halibut a humpback whale surfaces.
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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

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For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

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Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

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They are nothing like a cruise ship.

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Alaska State Ferry

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

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Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

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That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

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I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

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Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

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There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

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The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

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Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

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Alaska State Ferry

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

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In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

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And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

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And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

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As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?

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]]> - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=217 - 1 - - - Reaching the Top of an Alaskan Mountain - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203#comments - Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:28:34 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=203 - - Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne, the main contributor to MichiganTrailMaps.com, made it to Alaska and sent in his first blog entry.

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In Los Angeles, you cruise the Sunset Strip; in Paris, you stroll the Champs-Elyse’es; and in Anchorage, you climb Flattop Mountain. This is the first mountain every kid in Anchorage scales on the way to higher things. Flattop Mountain is to children in Anchorage what the Dune Climb is to kids in Michigan; their first big challenge in life. Only it’s a lot high, 3,550 feet to be exact.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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I arrived in Anchorage on one those incredible clear evening when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the downtown skyline was outlined by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. On a day like that there may be no more beautiful city in the country than Anchorage.

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In the center of all those peaks was Flattop Mountain, it’s distinctive sawed-off peak looking like the buzz-cut of a Marine Sergeant’s head. I knew then and there that my ultimate goal for my week in Alaska’s largest city was to work as hard and quickly as I could in updating my Lonely Planet guide in an effort to free up an afternoon to climb Flattop.

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Flattop Mountain and the trail to it are part of Chugach State Park, one of the most unusual state parks in the country. Established in 1970, 11 years after Alaska became a state, Chugach spans over 773 square miles, making it three times the size of Isle Royale National Park and the third largest state park in the country. It’s home to lofty peaks, crisscrossed with wilderness trails and populated by brown bears, moose and dall sheep. A giant wilderness playground.

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But the most amazing aspect of the park is that it lies on the edge of Alaska’s largest city, population 291,826.  Within 15 minutes you can drive from the tall buildings of the downtown area to the trailhead of Flattop Mountain and within a few minutes after that be above the treeline looking at a stunning panaroma of the city below you.

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Amazing.

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Flattop Mountain

Looking down on Flattop Mountain Trail from the peak.

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On the afternoon I had free I called Flattop Mountain Shuttle, which runs a van from Downtown Bicycle Rental on 4th Avenue in Anchorage to the trailhead daily during the summer. There were 14 of us in the van, all non-Alaskans and would-be-mountaineers, ready to conquer Anchorage’s most favorite peak. We had three-hours to hike it, the van was leaving the trailhead at 4 p.m.

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This is probably Alaska’s most popular trail, often on the weekend its 50-car parking lot at the trailhead is overflowing. The trek to the top is a 3-mile round-trip and is generally considered an intermediate hike, though at the end you’ll be scrambling on all fours to reach the summit. I arrived with trekking poles and a day pack loaded with water, energy bars and rain gear.

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I had no more started climbing when I noticed children on the trail, dogs that looked older than me, mothers with an infant in a backpack, guys running up while sipping from their Camelbacks. One woman that passed me was wearing a dress and footwear that was something between flip-flops and sport sandals.

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But for a Michigander like me, this was a climb. We just don’t have alpine in our state or anything like an ascent to Flattop Mountain. Yea, the Dune Climb is a steady uphill trudge to the top but you’re done in 10 minutes or less. It took me an hour to reach the top of Flattop and it was the kind of a trek where toward the end my heart was beating and I had to pause every so often to catch my breath.

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When I reached that flat peak there was no view, the clouds were swirling around the mountain and I could barely see where to pick up the trail for the return. Still there I was, on top of a mountain, above the alpine, high-fiveing the other hikers I arrived with as if we had just conquered Mt. McKinley.

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I’m from Michigan and I miss the alpine, the Porcupine Mountains just aren’t the same. On the way down I decided that I would devote my remaining six weeks in Alaska to climbing a peak every chance I get.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Sleping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

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Thoughts on a Wilderness Island

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- You figure out what's important in life while watching whitecaps and waves on the backside of a wilderness island.
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Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

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Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

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By Jim DuFresne

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Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

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But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

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On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

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Powerful stuff.

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If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

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I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

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Life was good.

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A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

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I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

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Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

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Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

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Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

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It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

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And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

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Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

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At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

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But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

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The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

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The Cosmopolitan World of South Manitou Island

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- From backpackers and researchers to volunteers and kayakers, South Manitou Island can be a busy place in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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Editor’s Note: Here is the second blog in a series based  on Jim DuFresne’s recent research trip on South and North Manitou Islands, part of  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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By Jim DuFresne

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There are two former U.S. Lifesaving Service boathouses on South Manitou Island. The largest is at the head of the wharf and is where newly arrived campers gather with the park ranger for backcountry orientation.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Next to it is a smaller boathouse.

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“Welcome to the South Manitou Island Fitness Club,” said ranger Sean Campillo as he lead me inside. I was still trying to adjust to the darkness when Campillo flung open the surfboat doors at the end of it.

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In the flood of sudden sunlight I realized he was right, this was a fitness club hiding in a historic boathouse. There were weight racks and benches and jump ropes and mats and a bicycle machine.

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All of it, but particularly the speed bag and bench press rack, were strategically positioned in front of the large doors at the end. When opened, the gray, weathered doors framed an incredible scene; Crescent Bay harboring a few anchored boats, the golden dunes and beaches that surround it, North Manitou Island just three miles to the north and all around a blue sky that on the horizon is absorbed by an even bluer Lake Michigan.

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This is where you’ll find Campillo before he puts on his park ranger uniform every day. Early in the morning he squeezes in a workout, often while watching the sunrise over Crescent Bay. An hour of lifting that strengthens the muscles and sooths the soul.

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Park Ranger Sean Campillo

Sean Campillo , park ranger on South Manitou Island.

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Let the day begin.

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“I’ve been in a lot of weight rooms,” said Campillo, who played rugby for Indiana University. “But this is the best one I’ve ever worked out in.”

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The job that goes with it isn’t bad either.

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From April to November, Campillo lives and works on a South Manitou, a 5,000-acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan that has no cars, no convenient stores, no cable TV and only mediocre cell phone service from the back side of the island.

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He lives in the restored U.S. Lifesaving Service Station from the turn of the century and works a schedule that calls for 10 days on South Manitou and four days off on the mainland.

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On the island Campillo is everything. As South Manitou’s only ranger, he is law enforcement, the emergency medical person, the search and rescue guy, and occasionally the historian who gives lighthouse tours.

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“Take a good look at this face because if you have a problem out here this is who you need to find,” Campillo tells the new campers.

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South Manitou may be a remote, isolated island but at times it’s surprisingly busy. On the day I arrived the ferry was full, 150 passengers including a group of 60 senior citizens on a day trip from Grayling.

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Others were day hikers and families, who arrive with the ferry at 11 a.m. and leave when it returns to Leland at 4 p.m. There were also campers outfitted with everything they need to spend a few nights, kayakers arriving with their own boats and backpackers planning an extended walk around South Manitou.

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The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

The South Manitou Island Fitness Club

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Already on the island was a small maintenance staff  for National Park Service (NPS), researchers conducting a water quality study of Lake Michigan and my favorite group; park volunteers.

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More than 20 volunteers, most of them retirees ranging in age from mid to late 60s, were there for up to two weeks, restoring the historic barns and homes leftover from South Manitou’s heyday as an agricultural center a century ago.

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In return for their labor, the NPS gives them transportation to the island and room-and-board once they are there. “How long do you work?” I asked one volunteer. “Six hours,” he said without hesitation, “and they pretty much hold you to it.”

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Still we were sitting on the shady front porch of the ranger station, watching the ferry depart for the day, drinking a cold beer from the private stash he brought with him. Then we headed over for the dinner volunteers stage nightly at one of the historic cottages. This was Tuesday so it was Fajitas Night and somebody was mixing Margaritas in the kitchen.

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Not a bad way to spend a week or two.

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This is Campillo’s world, an island with up to 300 people on it during the day, maybe less than 100 at night. A place where the most common medical mishap is a blister on the back heel and most emergencies are hikers who just missed the ferry.

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For the suddenly marooned day visitor, Campillo lends them a tent and a sleeping bag – there’s no turning the ferry around – and shows them a chest in the large boathouse filled with Ramen Noodles and instant oatmeal that departing backpackers have left behind.

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Then he calls it a day on a remote island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

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- - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/indexffc9.html b/blog/indexffc9.html deleted file mode 100755 index 1a75a69..0000000 --- a/blog/indexffc9.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,70 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Trail Talk » Michigan state forests - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - Commentary, views, humor, and advice on exploring the outdoors that occur to travel writer, Jim DuFresne, while following a trail through the woods. - Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:51:35 +0000 - en-US - hourly - 1 - http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 - - A Tree in the Middle of the Trail: The Need to Support MI State Forests - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122#comments - Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:45 +0000 - Jim DuFresne - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog/?p=122 - - A day after the Great Lakes Cyclone, when winds were hitting 60 mph and stronger, I was in the Pigeon River Country State Forest following the 10-Mile Loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway for http://www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. It was still windy, but otherwise the afternoon was cool, clear and crisp, the perfect day to be out in the woods hiking a trail.

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The Shingle Mill winds past some of the best scenery that Northern Michigan has to offer, but what occupying my thoughts wasn’t views of steep-sided sinkhole lakes or the Pigeon River, but all the logs and trees that the high winds had blown across the pathway.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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Who was going to remove them?

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In mid-October the Forest Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that due to another cut in general funds all maintenance work would be suspended on the 60 non-motorized pathways in Michigan’s seven state forests.

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That includes plowing parking areas in the middle of the winter and grooming pathways for skiers. Or pumping out vault toilets at the trailheads. Or repairing bridges and signage along the trails. Or even painting an occasional blue blaze on trees.

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Or removing a tree that has fallen across the trail and stops everybody dead in their tracks.

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The only exception, said DNRE officials, are state forest trails where the state has signed contractual agreements to groom them or pathways that have spawned volunteer groups to oversee their maintenance.

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“We’re going to have to go in a different direction,” Lynn Boyd, chief of the DNRE Forest Management Division, told the Grand Rapids Press. “We had another cut in general fund. They took $300,000 out of the forest recreation budget. That money went to ski trails and non-motorized trails with no funding source, plus campgrounds.”

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The decision affects not only cross-country skiers this winter but hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers and equestrians. Everybody can expect pathways in rougher condition next year with a cloudy future beyond that. This affects some of Michigan’s most popular trails; Jordan River Pathway, Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Mason Tract Pathway and the Sinkholes Pathway.

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Some hope that Michigan’s new Recreation Passport program will provide funds to the state forests as well as the state park system. Passports went on sale Oct. 1 and are designed to replace motor vehicle entry stickers at state parks and boat launches.

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Some funds will eventually trickle down to the forest recreation program, but not be until 2012 at the earliest and nobody, not even the people who created the program, know how much it will generate for state forest pathways.

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Meanwhile trees keep falling on the trails.

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A fallen tree on the Warner Creek Pathway.

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It’s seems to me that the funding model we have for state forests recreation is badly outdated and no longer meets our needs. The only thing we pay for are campgrounds and despite fees being raised to $15 a night, the DNRE still  had to close 12 more state forest campgrounds last year that may never be re-opened.

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Some have advocated turning a portion of the campgrounds and pathways to local units of government but they don’t seem much more endowed with recreation funds than the state. Others urge donation canisters at every trailhead. Maybe some will give, maybe some won’t.

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It’s seems to me if we, the mountain bikers, hikers, skiers, the morel mushroom hunters, the birders, want state forest pathways, we all need to pay for it. What we need is an annual state forest permit, priced at $10 or $15 a year and required anytime you enter a state forest.

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The suggestion of such a permit will have many screaming “tax increase” but I’ve never equated user fees as taxes. If you want to see a movie, you have to purchase a ticket. If you go out to dinner, you pick up the tab at the end of the meal. You drive across the Bluewater Bridge to Canada, there’s a toll booth waiting for you at the other end.

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If you want a pathway that’s been cleared, marked and equipped with toilets and drinking water at the trailhead, there’s a price to pay. If you don’t want to pay the price of admission, you can’t see the movie. That’s not a tax, that’s a ticket.

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I don’t have a problem paying for outdoor recreation. This year alone I spent $104 for annual passes to Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan State Parks and Oakland County parks. Funding the places where I hike, ski and camp is far less expensive than what it costs me to visit them in terms of gas, lodging and equipment.

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And if a national forest is worth $30 a year to me or the Sleeping Bear Dunes $20, then surely 5 million acres of state forest land, blessed with more than 700 miles of trails and 133 campgrounds and preserving trout streams and lakes, is worth $10. Or more.

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Sadly, in this era of no-new taxes this would be a hard concept to push through Lansing.  But the alternative to doing nothing is a dwindling number of state forest campgrounds and trailhead facilties … and a growing number of trees laying across the pathways.

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Tuesday, 10 of September of 2013

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Category » Argentina

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From Argentina – A Personal Trophy of a Trout

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After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

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The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

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Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

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On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

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It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

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“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

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A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

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Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

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We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

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They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

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Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

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Jim Dufresne with a brown trout.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

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Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

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Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

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I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

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When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

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For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

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He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

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By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

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When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

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 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

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The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

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Then it would run again.

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Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

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It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

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He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

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I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

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“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

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images/wlw/wp-icon.png - images/wlw/wp-watermark.png - View site - Dashboard - - - - - - - - - - - - - - diff --git a/blog/wp-trackbacke2dc.php b/blog/wp-trackbacke2dc.php deleted file mode 100755 index e0dced8..0000000 --- a/blog/wp-trackbacke2dc.php +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5 +0,0 @@ - - -1 -I really need an ID for this to work. - \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/blog/xmlrpc.php b/blog/xmlrpc.php deleted file mode 100755 index 3f90886..0000000 --- a/blog/xmlrpc.php +++ /dev/null @@ -1 +0,0 @@ -XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/blog/xmlrpc0db0.php b/blog/xmlrpc0db0.php deleted file mode 100755 index 01c583e..0000000 --- a/blog/xmlrpc0db0.php +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14 +0,0 @@ - - - WordPress - http://wordpress.org/ - http://michigantrailmaps.com/blog - - - - - - - - - diff --git a/libjs/external.js b/libjs/external.js index e3357bf..b9d0b7f 100755 --- a/libjs/external.js +++ b/libjs/external.js @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ $('a').each(function() { 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